Live and In Living Color
Posted: January 20th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 45 Comments »
OK, yeah, I’m trying a bit of a new look. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out most of it yet — no idea how to get that Archives page to work — but what do you think? I was drawn to this design because of the Little Italy photo on top … love that. Of course I could have just held a Pozcars contest to have one of you design this blog.
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I only counted about five cheap shots by Rodney Harrison in that first half — none of them mentioned by announcers Jim Nantz or Phil Simms yet. I’m still hoping.
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Did you see that halftime bit where Dan Marino’s cell phone kept going off. I’m not sure I could come up with a better description of Marino’s personality than he’s the kind of guy who would do a halftime show for the AFC Championship Game with his cell phone ringer still on.
Yes, I’ve had experiences with Marino. The most telling one happened when I was a very young columnist in Augusta — 24, I believe — I was sent to Florida to write a story about John Daly. This was just after Daly won the PGA Championship, back when he was an absolute phenomenon. I was a bit nervous about the whole thing, honestly, but I approached Daly, and he said, “Hey, sure, just come out tomorrow and you can walk with me during the Pro-Am and we can talk as much as you like.”
Next day, I get out there, and there’s a HUGE crowd around Daly. So I’m thinking, “Oh man, no chance now.” Well, then Daly sees me and he shouts, “Hey man, come on over.” And so I walk on the course and just start walking with Daly, and he’s talking, and it remains one of my favorite interviews ever.
What does this have to do with Marino? Well, it turns out that he was in the same Pro-Am group. And he wasn’t too happy about me interviewing Daly on his time. After a few minutes, Daly’s talking, and Marino starts shouting at me. “Hey,” he screams, “you know some of us here paid good money to play with John.”
And then John Daly, bless his soul, turns to Marino and says, “You are playing with me Dan. Pipe down.”
And so the official political position of this blog, no matter what events may happen over the next thousand years, will always remain as so: John Daly = Awesome. Dan Marino = Not Awesome.
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Wow, Tom Brady looks TERRIBLE today.
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Saw a great Jetsons today — it was the one where George and Mr. Spacely lie to their wives so they can go to the football game. They get in big trouble, of course, but then they get out of trouble by giving their wives minks. I’m guessing, based on close study of the Jetsons and the Flintsones and other cartoons, that minks were sort of likes 1960s “Get out of Jail Free” cards for duplicitous husbands.
Anyway, there were two great “futuristic” moments in the show. The first was when George got his newspaper — it was a tiny cartridge which he put into some sort of “Newspaper Reading Machine.” George goes to the sports page and there’s a picture of the football coach. George clicks on the coach who says, “We’ll moider ‘dem.” And I have to tell you — it’s very strange to be watching the Jetsons and see some futuristic device that’s actually MUCH MUCH less technologically advanced than what we actually have now.
The second thing was the Jetsons’ football game itself — it was a game played by robots. You had coaches on both sidelines controlling those robots by shuffling players in and out and calling all the plays and putting in specialists (including one robot that had a steamroller on it — sort of the Shawne Merriman robot). In other words, those Jetsons writers really could see the future.
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I really appreciate the gutsiness it takes to punt when down two scores to the only undefeated team in 35 years with about nine minutes left in the game and the ball in New England territory. I’m more than willing to give Norv Turner all sorts of credit for taking this Chargers team to the AFC Championship game. That Indy victory last week was gutsy and surprising.
But in the end, Norv Turner will be Norv Turner.
Update: I just looked it up — there was less than six minutes left, not nine. You know what? You punt there, you’re not even trying.
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Insightful answer of the day goes, as always, to Bill Belichick: “Bill, what was the difference today?”
Belichick: “The difference was the players.”
So true. So darn true.
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A reader request — looking for a plus/minus number on Andruw Jones vs. Chipper Jones.
2007
Andruw: -5
Chipper: +21
Not too close there, but Andruw had a brutal 2007 season.
2006
Andruw: +31
Chipper: Did not get 500 plate appearances.
Andruw was one of the league best run producers.
2005
Andruw: +13 — though almost all his run producing value came from his home runs. He was a minus RBI guy and a big minus run-scoring guy.
Chipper: Did not get 500 PAs.
2004
Andruw: -10
Chipper: -4
Don’t know if that gives youany info, but that’s as far back as I’ve gone on this project.
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Don’t we think by now that the whole “wearing short sleeves in freezing cold weather to prove how tough you are,” thing has sort of lost its cache. We get it. Your tough. Put some damn sleeves on.
I just asked the man, New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro, if he’s writing his column in short sleeves. He indicated that he is not. I don’t see how you can write a tough column that way.
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I’m not a big fan of mixing religion and sports — it’s usually out of place. But I would say it is especially out of place today in this Green Bay-New York game in -20 wind-chill weather. I really don’t want to see anyone here make a nice play and then point up to heaven. I don’t think God’s “stay indoors” message could have been much clearer.
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Wow, hilarious observation by brilliant reader Chris concerning Dan Marino’s cell phone going off …
“The BEST part is that, if you noticed, his cell-phone ring tone is the T-Mobile tone. And he’s on the SPRINT halftime show. … Gotta love it. Although I’m sure there are a lot of pissed off Sprint execs out there.”
Well, they’re not out there. Sprint is HERE in Kansas City. I’ve got to call a few friends.
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Well, a little baseball news on this ridiculously cold day … it looks like the Royals have signed Brett Tomko to compete for their starting rotation. I never really know what to make out of moves like this. On the one hand, Brett Tomko is coming off a dreadful year, and he wasn’t all that good in pitchers parks the previous two seasons, and he will be 35 about a week into the season. There seems no good reason to think that he would pitch any better than the younger pitchers the Royals already have — Jorge de la Rosa, Kyle Davies, John Bale, Luke Hudson (when he returns from injury), Brandon Duckworth, Luke Hochevar (when he’s ready), Tyler Lumsden (ditto), etc. — and could be a good deal worse.
On the other hand, I fully understand this sort of thinking — if I was a general manager, I’d always want to do SOMETHING. It would just frustrate me to no end to just have to sit there and wait for spring training and not sign anybody. The Royals’ starting pitching has been SO bad over the last 10 years; everything that could go wrong did. I’d want to bring about 40 starters to camp in the hopes that just one of them will pan out.
Scouting reports indicate that Tomko had good stuff at the end of last year when he was pitching with the Dodgers. and he has thrown 190-plus innings five times in his career, and he was born in Cleveland (always a good thing) and he married a former Playboy Centerfold* and … yeah, I can certainly see how you would try to convince yourself that he could help the club.
QUESTION: Would you call someone a “former” Playboy Centerfold or is it an honorary title that you hold all your life, sort of like President of the United States Eagle Scout. And yes, I just got an email from someone very pleasantly correcting me for saying someone “was” an Eagle Scout when, apparently, you get to keep that title forever.
Anyway, the Royals did something. Which I think was the point.
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Lawrence Tynes. Ah, some Kansas City memories. He just shanked a field goal that would have sent the Giants to the Super Bowl made him one of New York’s all-time sports heroes — it was a bad snap and all but still Tynes looked like one of those guys they pull out of the crowd who tries to make a field goal in a halftime contest. And now, Tynes (even if he ends up making the game-winning field goal) will never be one of New York’s all-time sports heroes.
The game is now going into overtime, and based on the weather and the fact that Brett Favre looks like he’s about 493 years old, this game could last all night.
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Well, how wrong was THAT? Brett Favre goes out and throws a BRUTAL interception two minutes into overtime. Then Tynes goes out there, plants a 47-yard field goal (longest ever postseason field goal at Lambeau) and sends Big Blue to the Super Bowl. He is a hero after all.
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“…unless round’s funny”
I support your Raising Arizona reference.
3 things:
1) for some reason, i’ve never heard anything bad about john faly from people who have met him in person.
2) i have the sound down (i’m listening to lambchop while watching football, it’s weird) but it doesn’t surprise me marino’s phone was going off. for some reason, he strikes me as a world-class tool.
3) i like the new design.
i don’t know who john faly is, but i think he has something to do with john daly.
and from reading your post, i wonder if that jetsons episode is why my wife always casts a suspicious glance at me when i bring her flowers…
i can’t remember that jetson’s epsiode, but it sounds like my favorite late-80s arcade game, cyberball.
I just noticed that in the pepsi commercial, Phillips calls the yawning play and Romo executes a play that ends in failure….and in that commercial the cowboys are playing the Giants. I bet the cowboys don’t find that commercial so funny anymore*.
*Most people didn’t, except I really do believe that is how Wade Phillips coaches.
Funny, my halftime show was an interview with Alistair Kirkwood about the NFL game in Britain next season.
Tom Brady has indeed looked bad today; if LT was playing this could be a sad situation for Patriots fans, and non-Pats-fan bloggers who picked them today (me).
Love it, just as I was reading the Rodney Harrison post, he dropped an interception and threw a cheap forearm to the QBs chin the very next play.
good stuff
It is awfully rude of Marino to leave his cell on, but its even worse that Shannon Sharpe keeps trying to talk with food in his mouth…why’s he always eating during the show anyway?
Excellent new look, and exceptional choice of quote in your header. Shortly after that movie came out, I realized there were two types of people in the world – Those who didn’t get the humor in Raising Arizona, and those I’d like to hang out with.
If the Giants win, would the two coaches in the SB set a record for dislike of hype/press conferences/etc.? And would they still bother to go out to Arizona or just play the game in New Haven?
Harrison has always been an unredeemable a-hole on the field, and a complete phony off. He’s a lesser, football version of Barry Bonds, yet never gets called on this.
John Faly-Daly is, by far, the coolest golfer on tour. Always generous, always genuine, always gracious.
Like the new design, great story about John “grip it and rip it” Daly.
Dan Marino’s phone going off was classic! The BEST part is that, if you noticed, his cell-phone ring tone is the T-Mobile tone. And he’s on the SPRINT Half-time show.
Gotta love it. Although I’m sure there’s a lot of pissed off Spring execs out there…
I live in KC and have Sprint , when I had a problem they told me that they did not service the city. I promptly had to explain that I could drive to their world headquarters in minutes. The rep seemed stunned at this, amazing (by the way she was American).
Eric,
I do not believe you, because I wasn’t aware that Sprint services could ever be problematic.
Regarding Tomko…I think he’s a pretty decent signing, because if the younger guys show they are ready to be quality starters, the team can just move Tomko to the ‘pen.
As per BBref, the Royals’ starting pitchers/ip/ERA+ last year were:
1) Gil Meche 216 128
2) Brian Bannister 165 121
3) Odalis Perez 137.3 84
4) Jorge De la Rosa 130 81
5) Kyle Davies 50 71
6) Scott Elarton 37 45
7) Billy Buckner 34 89
For next year’s rotation, after Meche, Bannister, and Greinke, you’re looking at a big dropoff. You need to get 200 odd innings from the field. Especially since Hochevar hasn’t really earned his way into the rotation, I’d rather have some redundancy in the #4-5 spots than risk needing to throw out some guy with a 75 ERA+ for a hundred odd innings.
Garbage. Oh, garbage. Brett Favre, how could you do this? That interception made my heart hurt.
Playboy claims “once a centerfold, always a centerfold.”
Don’t ask how I know this.
I don’t see where the Tomko signing makes much all that much sense. Even presuming Meche and Bannister backslide a bit they should still be serviceable, and Greinke looked to finally have things figured out the last four or five months last season. That leaves two spots, and I’d be ten times happier to see the Royals give those spots to someone who may actually be around in 2-3 years when the club is hoping to be good. With the pen largely set, you’ve got about 400 rotation innings to divvy up between De la Rosa, Davies, Nunez, Hochevar and Lumsden. If none of them pan out, you’ve got Hudson or Duckworth to pick up some slack. (Or Nomo. Hehe, just kidding.) Seriously, if the Royals can’t fill those last two slots with SEVEN candidates vying for them, there’s a larger problem at work here, and I wouldn’t expect Tomko to fix it. (Particularly when he could do no better than a career ERA+ that was 7% worse than average pitching mostly in a no-DH league.)
$3 million for the equivalent of an average AAA pitcher? That’s how you guys are spending the luxury tax money? Give me a break! Just lower ticket prices or something.
Figures, after I finally remember to recommend this site to my friend’s dad, a diehard Indians fan, while noting “it references Duane Kuiper in the subtitle”, you go ahead and change it.
Oh well, looks nice. And I think he’s a Raising Arizona fan, too.
Go Pats!
I’m glad that Marino sounds to be as much an a-hole as I had hoped he would be. I’m storing that anecdote away in the hopes of finding more as time goes by. I loved Boomer yelling at him to turn his phone off. The even more irritating aspect of the whole thing is that it kept going off. He’s probably that jerk that leaves his phone on in the movie theater, too.
As for Tomko, I really don’t like him (although not nearly as much as A.J. Pierzynski), but I can understand the desire to sign some pitcher as a last resort veteran back-up plan should things go drastically wrong in spring training. For instance, I’d like to think we’re in the clear with Greinke, but I don’t think we can be sure of that. There are a lot of variables with the pitching staff. Even more question marks.
D.B. – Is that really you??? Wha’ happened?
As for Rodney Harrison, he never gets called on it because no one cares about him. He’s dirty. It may irritate me during the game, but I can count the times I’ve thought of him outside of the time while watching a game on one hand.
What the hell was Norv Turner thinking, punting from the 36 down 2 scores.
Up until that point I just wanted a good game and didn’t care who won. After that I was rooting for exactly what ended up happening: for San Diego to never get the ball again and to lose.
I’m not a football pro or anything, but I’m just never in favor of punting inside the other team’s 40.Punting inside the other teams 40 when you’re two scores down in the fourth quarter of the conference title game? World class gutless.
Weren’t the R’s interested in Tomko a couple of years ago? I still don’t get it. It reminds me of the old joke “Hey do you remember when Brett Tomko was good? Me neither.”
I think you give Hochevar one of the spots unless he shows he’s not ready and then I’m sure the 5th spot will be a potpourri of Davies, DLR, Tomko, Hudson, Duckworth, Bale etc……
Hey,
The screen is too wide for our computer. It needs to adjust to any size, no?
Why didn’t whoever was calling Marino know he was at work?
If everyone who was at the Royals Fanfest this weekend buys tickets, Kauffman Stadium will be sold out. Where did all of those people come from? What a mob scene that was.
Finally! Someone, somewhere with an audience calls out the Pats for their dirty play during yesterday’s game and Norv for the absurdly stupid play calls (including the punt decision) during the Chargers’ last drive. Though I would like someone to point out the illegal leg whip by Vrabel on Rivers on the key interception in the 2nd quarter. How does the referee standing right there miss that call. Spineless.
I like the new look to the site and the Nathan Arizona quote.
Re: Time left in 4th quarter Pats-Bolts game. Not 6- mins as you say but 9+mins:
To set the record straight:
4-10-NE36 (9:21) M.Scifres punts 23 yards to NE 13, Center-D.Binn, fair catch by K.Faulk.
New England Patriots at 09:13
1-10-NE13 (9:13) L.Maroney left end pushed ob at NE 25 for 12 yards (A.Cromartie).
1-10-NE25 (8:40) T.Brady sacked at NE 17 for -8 yards (sack split by I.Olshansky and S.Cooper).
2-18-NE17 (8:04) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass short right to K.Faulk to NE 24 for 7 yards (D.Florence).
3-11-NE24 (7:16) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass short right to K.Faulk to NE 35 for 11 yards (C.Hart).
1-10-NE35 (6:30) L.Maroney right end to NE 36 for 1 yard (C.Hart, R.Bingham).
2-9-NE36 (5:49) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass short left to D.Stallworth pushed ob at NE 42 for 6 yards (E.Weddle).
3-3-NE42 (5:17) (Shotgun) T.Brady pass short middle to K.Faulk to SD 44 for 14 yards (E.Weddle).
1-10-SD44 (4:28) L.Maroney left end to SD 42 for 2 yards (I.Olshansky, J.Williams). NE 39-Maroney 2nd consecutive 100-yard playoff game, 2nd career.
2-8-SD42 (3:43) L.Maroney right guard to SD 36 for 6 yards (J.Tucker, I.Olshansky).
3-2-SD36 (3:36) L.Maroney left tackle to SD 31 for 5 yards (S.Cooper).
1-10-SD31 (2:50) L.Maroney up the middle to SD 27 for 4 yards (M.Wilhelm, J.Williams).
2-6-SD27 (2:08) L.Maroney left tackle to SD 25 for 2 yards (S.Phillips, R.Bingham).
3-4-SD25 (2:00) L.Maroney left tackle to SD 20 for 5 yards (Q.Jammer).
1-10-SD20 (1:15) T.Brady kneels to SD 21 for -1 yards.
2-11-SD21 (:39) T.Brady kneels to SD 22 for -1 yards. Patriots 18th straight win (including playoffs), tying 5 other teams for 2nd best streak in NFL history (Patriots 2003-04). Patriots 11th straight home playoff win.
Oh, you’ll learn about Tomko soon enough. He puts out a few decent games in spring training and April/May, then sucks and always lets you down, then gets moved to the pen and sucks more, then complains to the press that getting moved to the pen messes him up since he’s really a starter. You’ll see…
When the Dodgers finally, finally dropped him after several cycles of this sort of thing, the Padres picked him up in September. He then announced to the press that being moved to the pen by the Dodgers messed him up, pitched one good game – against the Dodgers. That’s how he is. You’ll note the Padres did not keep him.
(Dodger Fan)
Where’s the picture from?
You’re a dickbag. Not only is your Marino story silly, it’s probably exaggerated. I’ve met Dan a bunch of times and he’s never anything but a cool guy and a perfect role model. My guess is that you were so busy chugging Daly’s wad while Dan was in his backswing, it caused a distraction. Do you really expect us to believe Dan worries about spending money. When it comes to dissing Dan, move along, douchey!
BTW, great point about Harrison – total dirtbag.
Dickbag? Is that a word?
Marino seems like a douche. He took the Dolphins GM job, then quit when he realized how much work it was and how much crap he would take if he messed up.
Once a Playmate, always a Playmate, unless:
1. She does hardcore … you know.
2. She poses for Penthouse.
3. She talks too much crap about Hef.
First of all, once a centerfold, always a centerfold (I don’t see anyway of getting all of the ink off of all of those pages.
As a Patriots fan, I was extremely happy to see them punt down two scores in the fourth quarter.
The Patriots won that game with defense and a power running game. Their two biggest weapons did not produce. This was the game I had feared all year, because I felt they were built to win in Indy (and not in wintry Foxboro), but they still came through.
Comment number 33 is the classiest thing I think I’ve ever seen, ever.
Nice Kevin but next time tell us how you really feel.
Name any athlete in the universe and you’re going to find 100 people that have met him/her and had a pleasant experience and 100 people that were left with a sour taste in their mouths. It’s part of life. Don’t be so sensitive about it Kevin O.
I hate Barry Bonds with every ounce of my body but I’m sure that thousands have met him and had a great time around him. I worship the ground Tom Brady walks on and I would not be surprised one bit to hear from 500 different fans that he shunned, yelled at, ignored, or whatever.
One person’s opinion does not make or break someone else’s reputation. If it did Kevin O, I’m sure you’d be plenty capable of crying yourself to sleep at night because someone didn’t like you. Grow up.
As for meeting athletes, I won’t bore you with the long version, but I still treasure my photo of me when I was a kid with my grandpa and Fuzzy Zoeller. Great guy.
And rpa, CyberBall is the best. I own a four-player CyberBall 2072 arcade console.
Well put, Craig.
Kevin O, you’ve got issues. If you are wearing a Marino jersey when you meet the man, he’s going to be nice to you. Your Dolphin fandom is eating at the core of your existence, replacing your soul with tumors. Rid yourself of the burden of being amongst the worst fans in professional sports. Move away from Miami to the Everglades and re-emerge when you’ve rid yourself of the devil and beaten down your shortcomings with a steady diet of gator meat and orchid-dust.
I have heard negative stories about Marino during my 10 years in South Fla. I feel as though I must come to his defense. I worked at a golf club that he frequents about 3 times a week for a two year stretch. He was one of the most down to earth, genuine people I ever came across. He always asked how we were doing, etc.
The Daly pro-am story sounds fishy for one main reason. I work in the golf business and know for a fact that Dan Marino would never pay a cent to play in a pro am, especially in Miami. He may have been perturbed by a media member walking in the group, but he certainly wouldn’t have complained about the money he spent. If he did mention money he was only defending the 3 other members of the pro am group who did pay big bucks….nothing selfish at all in his (possibly valid) complaint.
Hey I was one of those kickers at halftime, and unlike Tynes I made all three of my attempts (I don’t care if they were from only 15 yards). Still lost though
Wait a second?I thought Seymour was the “dirty” player and the other 10 guys on the Pats D were good guys. Or is that just Harwick’s opinion. Sounds like a WHOLE BUNCH (note the caps to emphasize the enormity) of sour grapes. And a bit whiny. Why the Harrison crusade?
Nobody likes perfection. Because perfection is a mirror. I loved Rodney on the Chargers, I love him on the Pats. Man plays hard, plays hurt and gives 110% on every down. How many players can you say that about? In his prime, you wouldn’t want him on your team? Even now – well past his prime he starts for an undefeated team. And is clearly a defensive team leader. With that attitude comes penalties. To suggest he is intentionally dirty is a bit of a stretch. What’s the point of it anyway? What part of you would it satisfy if the “announcers” were to mention a Harrison cheap shot? Perhaps they don’t share your opinion of the hits. And as one reader says “who cares”. He’s a football player, not a surgeon. It’s a violent sport.
“The difference was the players”