Follow that CABIU

Brilliant reader Mike, already, hits us with the comment of the day:

Harrison is dirty, but he gets a ton of fines for some of the stuff he does. Announcers mentioned it in the past (that’s how I knew to look for it; I have a hard time noticing safeties when there’s 20 other guys on the field), but for some reason they haven’t this year. Which is especially odd because he had that whole HGH issue at the beginning of the year, it seemed the perfect time to really pile it on and make him look like a bad guy.
He truly does seem like a good guy off the field, but as a Patriots fan he’s my second least favorite player, behind Ellis Hobbs, who is by far the league leader in (Cockiness) minus (Actually-Backing-It-Up).

I love the CABIU formula — Cockiness (minus) Actually Backing It Up. Love it, love it, love it. I’ve got to believe that the current CABIU leader is Phil Rivers, right? I mean, seriously, you can’t go around the stadium, pointing at people in the crowd, mouthing off, “I’ll be back! I’ll be back!” and then NOT COME BACK. I mean you just can’t do that. You can’t. You just can’t. I don’t care if you have your leg amputated, you’ve GOT to go back out there after that, right?

That’s like a CABIU of infinity, isn’t it?

I also have been working for years on a concept — Perception of guy (minus) way guy actually is. I was calling it the Tommy Lasorda Award for a while, though that might be outdated.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 5:13 pm.
Categories: Baseball.

22 Comments, Comment or Ping

Derek

“…Perception of guy (minus) way guy actually is. I was calling it the Tommy Lasorda Award for a while, though that might be outdated.”

My friends and I always referred to guys like that as “Rock Hudsons.” I think that is slightly more outdated.

Believe it or not I am 23.

Jan 20th, 2008
Kevin

Shouldn’t that be the Derek Jeter award?

Jan 20th, 2008
TC

Jimmy Rollins has to be near the bottom of the list in CABIU, I imagine. When you’re declaring yourself the Team To Beat, and then, against all odds, you win the MVP, and the division, the C has to be very large (I mean, mind-bogglingly so), and the ABIU is nearly unparalleled, right?

I like that CABIU

Jan 20th, 2008
Josh

I think for the season Anthony Smith from the Steelers has to have this in the bag. Not only did he guarantee the Steelers would beat the Pats but he proceeded to get beat on two long touchdowns in a blow out loss. His poor play in the game even lead to him losing his starting job.

Jan 20th, 2008
Minda

I think the Pozcar voting committee should take a look at this CABIU issue.

We could break it down by sport and season (”The 2007 Baseball CABIU winner is…”) or figure out an all-time winner (”The ‘Lifetime Achievement in CABIU’ award goes to…”).

Jan 20th, 2008
Paul White

After thinking about this for a bit (like 30 seconds), I have a question. Can you have a negative CAIBU? If a guy had either no cockiness or very litte, and he really, really backed it up, that would be a pretty large negative number. Or are we going to get all strict with our logic rules and say that you can’t back up cockiness if it doesn’t exist, so the best CAIBU score would therefore be zero, no matter how much backing up you did?

I might just stick with my trusty, “How big a jerk is that guy on a scale of 1 to 10″ metric until all this gets worked out. (FYI - Harrison is a 10 on my scale, and I’m a Pats fan.)

Jan 20th, 2008
Paul White

And could we have a shorter acronym for the morons like me out there who can’t accurately remember acronyms that are longer than three letters? (Unless of course they spell cool words, like SCUBA, or FUBAR.)

Jan 20th, 2008
Chris Wexler

To move to the sport of CIABU champions, is there a better example than Kevin McHale, the second best general manager in the history of the Celtics?
Simply staying in the job after squandering Kevin Garnett’s talent, the multiple signings of Joe Smith, his bizarre attraction to Ricky Davis, and the long list of big men that “he could mold raw talent” into actual NBA players is astounding. His CIABU has given Minnesota one of the worst teams in NBA history…

Jan 20th, 2008
Josh

Well Isiah Thomas has to have clinched a spot as a hall of fame CIABU for recently discussing how he has laid the foundation of a championship team in NY. Though they are clearly one of the worst teams in the sport and have countless overpaid underperforming players (all acquired by Thomas). He was also impressive when he took over the CBA and ran it into the ground..

Jan 20th, 2008
Mike S

I would think that Buddy Ryan would have to be on the lifetime CIABU leader list. I can still remember him coming into Arizona and proclaiming “you’ve brought a winner to town”. Looking back, his magnificent Bears defense was less coaching and more amazing personnel.

Jan 20th, 2008
Schooner

Joey Porter would be in the CIABU hall of fame.

Jan 20th, 2008
rpa

well, rivers is out there today so i’m not going to bash him. especially after that pass he just threw to jackson…

mike s: i don’t know if you can hold anyone’s performance with the cardinals against them… i mean, that franchise is forever doomed to mediocrity (or worse). i think you could take the patriots entire team & coaching staff, put those uniforms on them… and at best they’d go 9-7 and be sent packing in the wild card round.

Jan 20th, 2008
Rob L

How about Bart Scott?

Jan 20th, 2008
Walter

Hey! A new look, pretty fancy Joe.

Jan 20th, 2008
Mike S

” i mean, that franchise is forever doomed to mediocrity (or worse).”

Aren’t they supposed to be cursed from the “Breaker Boys” fiasco of 1925?

Jan 20th, 2008
rpa

mike s: yes, the pottsville maroons have cursed them forever… heh.

i normally don’t believe in curses, but there’s really no other way to explain the cardinals.

revealing my appalachian heritage: i thought a “breaker boy” was someone who separated the slate from the coal as it cam e out of the chute. not sure what that has to do with pottsville, except maybe that they mined a lot of anthracite around there??? were some of their players former breaker boys? i guess they used a lot of kids for that kind of work around the mines in the late 19th/early 20th century (pre- those peksy child labor laws…)

Jan 20th, 2008
Doug

I am going to have to second naming that “perception” award after Tommy Lasorda. I have never met a nastier, more bitter man.

Jan 21st, 2008
Bill

Rollins might be down in CABIU, but he’s way, way up there in the second formula (POGWGAI?). “Winning” the MVP while not being the best player on your own team ought to be a huge boost toward the Tommy Lasorda Award (making Morneau a likely candidate for 2006 as well, but people seem to have pretty quickly forgotten how good they thought he was).

Jan 21st, 2008
D.B. Cooper

What do I think of Kingman’s performance?!

Jan 21st, 2008
Mean Dean

I also have been working for years on a concept — Perception of guy (minus) way guy actually is. I was calling it the Tommy Lasorda Award for a while

Sounds about right, and if you throw in Steve Garvey too, you might get the team record as well.

The “peak” champion, however, would be Pete Rose from 1963-1989. Not the career champion because of what’s gone on since then, but definitely the peak.

Honorable mention to Paul Lo Duca.

Jan 21st, 2008
Rob L

Al Harris.

He always talks about how he is the best cover corner in the game, but in two of the biggest games this year, he has been absolutely torched by big, physical receivers (Owens & Burress).

Jan 21st, 2008
Josh in DC

Shaq — back when he let out that “I’ve won at every level except college and the pros” deserves special mention here.

Jan 21st, 2008

Joe Posnanski