A Dream, Act 1
40So, Monday night, I watched Texas barely escape Ohio State with a wild final drive that almost ended on fourth down and did end on a touchdown pass from Colt McCoy to Quan Cosby with 16 seconds left in the game. I saw Texas, an eight point favorite and the No. 3 team in the land according to the Associated Press rankings, play an utterly uninspired fourth quarter, until the wild finish, and almost blow the game to an Ohio State team that wasn’t especially admired nationwide.
And then, when the game ended, I saw Cosby — who seems like a fine young man, by the way — talk about how nobody expected Texas win, they have been disregarded and disrespected all year, and he hoped that this would prove the naysayers wrong.
I don’t blame Cosby: The “We get no respect” card is such a cliche now that it has become a cliche to mock it.
BUT, it did make me think that I would love, just once, to hear this interview after a game …
Sideline reporter: “Obviously it was a great game.”
Player: Yeah, I think we proved today that people respected us too much. I mean, everyone thought we were going to blow them out. Seriously? I mean, we needed like a miracle just to win this game, and Ohio State has that quarterback who can’t even throw the ball 10 yards downfield. Man, he can run though, can’t he? Pretty sweet. And that touchdown catch he made, man oh man. But hey, we knew all year we weren’t that good. We’re pretty good, but man, people just kept over-respecting us and over-respecting us, I mean, it was ridiculous. Magazine covers. Glowing stories. Adults all over the country arguing about us. What are we ranked now? Third. Let’s be honest, we’re not that good. Nobody’s that good. I mean, did you see how much we were favored by? That’s a joke.
SR: Is that something you guys talked about?
Player: Oh yeah, absolutely, I think that was what was driving us today. We kept were saying that people need to stop giving us so much respect. What did we do to deserve all that respect? Who are we? Well, maybe now people will give us the lack of respect that we deserve.
SR: What would you say to the voters now?
Player: I’d tell them they have no idea what would happen if we played Utah or if Florida played USC or if Oklahoma played Ohio State or anything else. The whole thing’s a joke. We think we’re pretty good. There are a lot of good teams.
SR: Do you think you should be national champs?
Player: See, that’s what I’m talking about. Quit respecting us, all right? Let us play.
Something New (Updated)
Well, since ESPN redesigned its site, I figured … no, that’s not precisely right. I’m simply trying something new here with the site. I suspect we will go back to the old design once more complaints roll in, but I want to try this here to see if it will simplify my life at all.
If you have been a regular refresher on the site, you will note that I have tried about 23 different templates, some which I liked but brilliant readers immediately hated, some which did not work especially well, some which did work really well but were really no easier to maintain than my original version. This is the one that I have been working on, though, and it seems to have the best of both worlds — I think it looks good AND it will be a lot easier to maintain than the old site — plus there’s a cool sliding sidebar you have to click in order to see.
If you are having issues with your particular browser, let me know. I have tried it in Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer, and it seems to be working. If you have any thoughts on what you would like to see added/subtracted, let me know (not that I will have any idea what to do but let me know anyway). In the meantime, let’s go with this look for a while.
Change is hard. You know this if you have ever dropped a roll of quarters on your foot.
Update: I am hearing you on the comments … we’ll try to get that worked out so that the comments go in the chronological order and they are all on one page. Working on a few other modifications as well … or at least trying to get someone who can help me work on some other modifications.
Hall of Fame Ballot 2009
Bill James has told me — more than once — that if he had a Hall of Fame vote, he would probably vote for the maximum of ten players every year, or as close to ten as he could justifiably go. As he wrote: “I would always prefer to vote for ten, because if everyone votes for ten, only two or three will be elected. If people leave spaces empty the expectation goes down dramatically.”
I should say that I have never been entirely certain that he was serious … you never know with Bill. You know the story about Bob Dylan going up to Barry Manilow* sometime in the 1980s and saying, “Hey man, you just keep doing what you do.” And Manilow never knew what the heck Dylan meant by that, which I’m sure was the whole point.
You Play To Win The Game
I like Kansas City Chiefs coach in limbo, Herm Edwards. This has caused great consternation among friends and readers, but there it is anyway … I like him personally, I like him professionally, I like his energy, I like his enthusiasm for football and life, I like that he might at any time go off on a “You play to win the game,” rant, I like the way players seem to play hard for him.
Of course, I don’t really like the way he coaches actual football games … and, as they say in Swingers, there’s the rub. The Chiefs went 2-14 this year, and while Herm and the guys will talk about games the Chiefs should have won (both San Diego games, the Jets game, the Bucs game), that is the loser’s lament, and the truth is they SHOULD have lost the Oakland game*.
Ten good years
One knock you hear all the time about certain Hall of Fame candidates is that they were just good players who assembled impressive career numbers simply by sticking around for a long time. I have always thought that undersells longevity, the ability to stay healhy, the ability to grow old gracefully, which is probably the most underrated talent in the business.
Mickey Mantle couldn’t do it. He only once hit 30-plus homers after he turned 30.
Sandy Koufax couldn’t do it. He retired with arm problems at 30 after winning the Cy Young three out of four years.
Don Drysdale couldn’t do it. He won five games after he turned 31.
Ryne Sandberg was a thoroughly ineffective player after he turned 34 (.250/.313/.419) and Jimmie Foxx only hit 15 homers after his 34th birthday. Rogers Hornsby was a part-time player after he turned 33 and Gary Carter plugged along as a part-time catcher the last four years of his career. These are some of the greatest ever, Hall of Famers, but they were not especially useful after they passed their prime. Baseball is an unforgiving game — you can’t live off your name for very long. You have to perform or you will be discarded, and those players who perform long enough to put up the huge numbers, well, while most people think they are overrated, I tend to believe the opposite is probably true — they are probably underrated, under-appreciated for being successful after their youth has faded, and their bodies ache, and their stuff has gone, and their bats have slowed.
Free Stinky Feet
A few months ago, I wrote this column about a wonderful guy named JIm Cosgrove. You have to be a wonderful guy to happily call yourself “Mr. Stinky Feet.” Jim has been performing music for kids for a decade now as “Mr. Stinky Feet,” and he’s excellent. There’s an artform to performing (and writing) for kids* … you have to keep it simple but not too simple; you have to be obvious but not speak down; you have to reach for something inside you that is not easy to keep once you get older and see the world as an adult. Jim is one of those real-life Peter Pans.
*People have always told me that I need to write some children’s stories … I’m not sure I have that gift. Of course, it could be that people are telling me this simply because I’m striking out in the grown-up genre.
And, while I’m not sure how many people out there are parents of young children, I have to link to Margo’s blog*, where she is giving away five free copies of Jim’s new CD “Upside Down.” Free!
*No, really, I was told that I have to.
The CD is great for kids, and by that I mean that kids will love it AND you will not want to bang your head against the wall after listening to it four times in a row. And this CD has the very sweet song “Let’s Stick Together,” which was inspired (as I wrote in the column) by the day that Jim’s infant daughter was hit in the head by a foul ball at a minor league game. The story, for those of you who don’t want to click on the link, has a happy ending, and it’s a touching song. And, I’ll repeat again, it’s FREE! Leave a comment on the blog, include your email, and — between you and me — chances are that you will win one of these things. Margo, bless her, doesn’t get that many comments on her blog.*
*And she LOVES comments. I’ve never known anyone who loves reader comments as much as Margo. Go on over there, enter the deal. Even if you don’t have kids … even if you never want kids … even if you DESPISE kids … you will want to leave a comment, get in the drawing. Makes great music! Makes a great gift! Makes a great coaster! And it’s FREE!
Darkness falls across the land
We are in a little bit of a dark period here on the blog; I will be spending the next couple of weeks finishing up a certain book that I may or may not have mentioned here.* Unfortunately, the book does not seem to realize that it’s almost finished, and as such this figures to be an intense couple of weeks. I will try to check in with a big Hall of Fame post at some point in the next couple of days. But other than that, it could be relatively quiet around her until mid-January.
And then again, as those of you who follow the blog know, it might not be quiet at all. You never know with this crazy thing.
*09/09/09
In the meantime, here are few thoughts before going underground — you know, we can be happy underground.
Holy Cow! I am J.P. Ricciardi!
Every so often on this blog, I like to poke a little fun at Toronto Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi. Well, why not? He made those snide remarks after the Royals beat out the Blue Jays in the Gil Meche bidding. And you will recall last year he made those rather harsh comments on the radio about Adam Dunn not liking baseball*, and then had that goofy aftermath where he claimed to have apologized and Dunn said they never talked and all that.
*I should say in J.P.’s semi-defense that over the last six months, I have heard from numerous — I mean, probably eight or nine — people in baseball who said more or less the same thing about Dunn not liking baseball. Of course, they were smart enough to say it off the record, but the point is that lots of people in the game really believe that Dunn does not have a passion for baseball and, as such, is a bad bet for a long-term contract. I have a longer blog piece working on Dunn and what a fascinating baseball character he really is, but I thought I should mention this here.
Anyway, because of these J.P. quotes and others, and because of various things I’ve heard through the years from people around the Blue Jays organization, I’ve never had an especially high opinion of Ricciardi. I don’t dislike the guy — I’ve never even met him — but I also never got the impression that he’d be a great dinner companion.
Then I saw this little profile of Ricciardi put together by the excellent Jeff D’Alessio at The Sporting News. And I realized something a little bit frightening: We are the same guy.
J.P.’s favorite TV show: M*A*S*H. Check. Might not be my all-time favorite — Seinfeld, the Simpsons, Cheers, several others in contention — but it’s right there.
J.P.’s favorite movies: Godfather I and II. Life is Beautiful. Grease. Check on all three. I probably would not have put Grease on my list for numerous reasons, but I will say that when my daughters saw Grease for the first time I found that I remembered every single word to every single song, including “Beauty School Dropout.”
J.P. is reading: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. Just finished it. Excellent.
J.P.’s worst habit: Lack of patience. Check.
J.P.’s talent he’d most like to have: Play piano. Check. I have been taking lessons.
J.P.’s favorite meal: Ravioli and meatballs with antipasto. I’d make it spaghetti, but check.
J.P.’s favorite city to visit: New York. Check.
J.P.’s dream date: Ava Gardner. That’s just an outstanding choice. There are way too many choices: Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, Donna Reed, Danica McKellar, Mary Tyler Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jenna Fischer, Winona Ryder …
J.P.’s favorite value in others: Loyalty. Tough to argue with that one.
J.P.’s Bucket list: Enjoy as much time with my kids as I can. Check.
What’s on J.P.’s iPod: Springsteen, Queen, Squeeze, Dylan, Sinatra, The Eagles. All on my iPod too, all except the Eagles — cannot tolerate the Eagles though I did once spend more than 200 bucks to go to an Eagles concert. it was to impress a date. Lesson: A relationship has very little chance if it begins with you trying to impress the date by taking her to an Eagles concert. Anyway, we have obviously similar musical tastes as well.
Eerie. That’s all. And now I’m thinking that if I was GM of the Blue Jays, I’d probably have said the same things that J.P. said. And if he was writing this blog, he’d make fun of me for it.
Playoff Possibilities
When I was a kid — and, no, I cannot explain this at all — I used to love reading explainer agate in the local newspapers. It wasn’t officially called “explainer agate,” of course, but I don’t have a better phrase for it. Agate, as I’m sure you know, is the small type that you see in the newspaper on the various scoreboard pages. Box scores, for instance, fall under the agate umbrella. Standings are agate. League leaders, bowling scores, golf leaderboards, high school results, all-star game voting, horse racing results and all that are agate as well.
But — and this doesn’t happen so much anymore — newspapers used to put all sorts of other things on the agate page in small type. They might put in a “This day in history,” or trivia questions or a list of every perfect game or number of 300 games bowled on live TV or something equally surprising. It was quirky and unpredictable and probably pointless, but for me the agate page was like Christmas morning — you never knew what might be in there.
Rosey on Lions
My fascination with the Detroit Lions and their quest for 0-16 knows no limits. It probably says a lot about me that I did not have one-tenth the same interest level when the Patriots were on their 16-0 crusade a year ago. I guess I’ve always had a pretty good outsider sense of 16-0 — why it’s so hard to do, what kind of luck and determination it takes to get there, what it means.
But 0-16 — that’s a whole other thing. Anyone who watches the NFL closely realizes that there are plenty of lousy teams in this league, and there are many, many more teams that CAN BE lousy on any given week. It seems to me that to go winless in this environment takes something more than awfulness.
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