Darkness falls across the land
Posted: December 31st, 2008 | Filed under: Other Sports, Pop Culture | 42 Comments »
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.
– The Lions. That’s all. Just: “The Lions.â€
– Have to admit that I was surprised that the Broncos fired coach Mike Shanahan. I believe he SHOULD have been fired, especially the way that team fell apart at the end of the year. Plus, they got pretty well destroyed by the Chiefs, and this year that alone is probably a fireable offense. … Still, I have to admit I’m still surprised they fired the guy; I always got the impression that Shanahan had a lifetime pass to be the Broncos coach even though he’s won precisely one (1.0) playoff games the last 10 seasons. I guess I thought the Mastermind had what I have come to call the “Jen Factor,†where no matter how long he goes without being successful, many people will still remember him as a winner.
*This factor is, of course, named for Jennifer Aniston, who absolutely baffles me. I was thinking about this again today when — for reasons that are way too complicated to go into here — I was in a Wal-Mart in Concordia, Kansas. While in line, I saw that Jennifer Aniston is on the cover of People Magazine again. I have no beef with this — she’s a lovely woman and it’s apparent that many people are interested in her life. But my question is: WHY? As far as I can tell: (1) She was in Friends, which went off the air four years ago. None of the other people in Friends are famous anymore. I suspect David Schwimmer has not been on the cover of People Magazine in quite a long while. And where’s that Chandler guy? (2) She has, best I can tell, played in a series of blah and pretty unsuccessful movies. (3) She divorced Brad Pitt more than three years ago, which should make that yesterday’s news.
But with Jennifer Aniston none of it seems to matter. She seems to be bigger and hotter now than ever. It’s a gift, really; she that certain charisma, likability, freshness — whatever it is — to be considered “Now,†even when she hasn’t been “Now†for quite some time. That’s the Jen Factor. I’m sure you can think of others who fit.
I’ll give you a telling story about Shanahan: There’s a guy who has been emailing me for years about various football things, and one of his constant themes was how overrated Mike Shanahan had become as a coach. He went on and on about it: Mentioned that Shanahan had not reached the Super Bowl since John Elway retired. Talked about how the Broncos played sloppy and uninspired football. Talked about how his offense was passe and his teams faded in the second half.
Then on Tuesday, after Shanahan was fired, he sent me an email saying this: “I sure hope the Chiefs are going to go after him to be their next coach.â€
– I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night. I don’t feel any smarter, but my back is killing me.
– OK, so my brother Tony has lost 205.4 pounds now. I love how he puts the .4 pounds at the end of that. Because losing 205 pounds would not sound impressive enough.
It’s almost impossible to imagine: He’s down 205 pounds. That’s my wife and both my kids combined — with some pounds to spare. Here’s a classic photo of Tony trying on one of his old work shirts:
Remarkable stuff. I write about amazing accomplishments all the time — about athletes who succeed against odds, about gifted men and women who work harder in their field than anyone else, about men who could throw 100 mph fastballs and make one-handed catches in traffic and sink three-pointers with hands in their faces. I’m not sure any of those is quite as remarkable as my kid brother, on the brink of despair, turning his life around and losing the weight of a whole family. I should probably write my next book about him — or at least get him to co-write this idea I have had for a while called “The Sportswriters Diet.â€
– Interesting rundown on Jim Rice and whether the stories written during his day considered him to be “feared.†You may be all Riced out; I must admit that somewhere along the way I crossed that line. But this piece is still a lot of fun, and it includes a snippet of a story by Columbia, S.C.’s Bob Spear — a very nice man, by the way — who briefly tried to make the case that Fenway Park HURT Rice. He even had a quote to back up the bizarre premise: “The park has hurt him,†agreed Twins superscout Ellis Clary. “I remember Charlie Dressen talking about how Joe DiMaggio would hit 75 home runs a year in Ebbets Field (in Brooklyn). Along the same lines, put Rice in a park like Atlanta and he’d hit 95 a year …â€
I don’t know how someone goes from a mild-mannered scout to a superscout, but I suspect part of the criteria is suggesting that Jim Rice would have hit 95 home runs a year in Atlanta.
– Superscout Holly wonders if Bill Cowher has it in his CBS contract that they have to call him “Coach Cowher?†You know, it always seems to be: Dan, Shannon, Boomer and Coach Cowher. I don’t know Cowher well at all, but from my dealings with him I suspect that’s CBS’ idea.
I also have this hunch that Cowher remains pretty unconvinced about coaching football again next year. Yes, I think if he felt blown away by an offer — big money, complete control, assurances that he could win and win fast — then yeah, he might come back to coach. But really, he’s already been to the mountaintop. He’s a Pittsburgh guy who coached the Pittsburgh Steelers for 15 years, took them to two Super Bowls, won one, How is he going to top that? Seriously? Now he makes serious coin making a few football remarks on television, he’s a Pittsburgh icon, he’s got time with the family, and the longer he stays out of the game the more people out there esteem and cherish him. Yes, there are jobs galore this off-season — there’s big money in Cleveland, complete control in Kansas City, the bright lights in New York, a chance to pull a miracle in Detroit, a promising situation in Denver — but already reports circulate that he’s turned down a couple of those. And it would not surprise me one bit if he stayed out entirely for next season. I know that football coaches generally cannot stay out. But, and this is just a feeling, I think Cowher might be a little bit different.
– I have to say that I’m utterly enthralled by the Arizona-Atlanta playoff game this weekend. I don’t know why. It just seems to sum up this NFL season for me.
– OK, one more thought about the Lions. They went 0-16, of course. But I’m STILL not sure they’re the worst team in football. Take a look.
Team A: Lost 23 of last 25 games. Set NFL record for fewest sacks (10). That would be TEN sacks. Whole season. All 16 games. TEN SACKS. Twelve individual players had ten sacks or more. Also set team record for most yards allowed. Lost to Carolina by 34 (biggest thumping in Carolina history), and gave up 54 to Buffalo (most points ever given up in team history). Lost one game by blowing 11 point lead in final 1:30. Had seven different players throw passes.
Team B: Lost 23 of last 25 games. Gave up 517 points — most since the astounding Baltimore Colts of 1981 (who also had the fewest sacks record until Team A broke it). Had an almost unbelievable 109.3 quarterback rating against — no, check the “almost†part of that equation. That’s one of the rare stats that really is unbelievable in the truest sense. No quarterback in the NFL this year had a 109.3 quarterback rating — nobody was especially close to a 109.3 quarterback rating (Phillip Rivers led with a 105.5). I’m not trying to legitimize quarterback rating — it’s obviously a flawed and confused statistic — but it means something. And …
– Kurt Warner, in his amazing 1999 season … did not have a 109.3 quarterback rating.
– Randall Cunningham in his preposterous 1998 season … did not have a 109.3 quarterback rating.
– Dan Marino, when he set all those records in 1984 … did not have a 109.3 quarterback rating.
– Roger Staubach, when he went 10-0 in ‘71 and led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl title … did not either.
– And John Unitas. And Steve Young (every year but one). And Peyton Manning (every year but one). And Tom Brady (every year but one). And so on.
Meanwhile ALL THE QUARTERBACKS combined for a 109.3 against Team B. They also had five different players throw passes, four whose first names start with D — which was good because there wasn’t much D anywhere else. Blew 17-0 first quarter lead before halftime. Gave up 31 or more in seven of last eight games.
Of course, you already know that Team A is the Kansas City Chiefs and Team B is the Detroit Lions. You could argue fairly convincingly that NO TEAM is worse than the Lions. But there are two points worth making: Over the last two seasons, the Lions have seven wins, the Chiefs have six. And two: The Lions last win was against the Chiefs.
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FIRST
Detroit at least had the worst defense ever according to the sabermetric type analysis at http://www.footballoutsiders.com. They use a system called defense-adjusted value over average, or DVOA. It’s interesting statistical analysis of football that goes beyond TDs and yardage. Check it out. They have the Chiefs as being around 29th in the league, or if you weight the final few weeks heavier they are closer to 25th if I remember right.
Your “Jen Factor” is OK but will find it hard going to supplant the descriptive and apt “famous for being famous” line already out there.
And good on your brother — although if you’ve ever seen anyone beat a drug habit . . .
I hate to say I told you so about the Lions, but…
Back when they canned (finally!) Matt Millen, I said it was the one single day Lion fans could rejoice – but that our joy would soon be eclipsed by despair once we learned who was replacing him.
Well, William Clay Ford made it even worse. First we had to live through the ignominy of 13 more losses before we got to the end of the year.
And then – only then – after a historic 0-16 record, one for the ages, we learned our desserts. You know, who would replace Matt Millen. Sure, there was lots of talk to get our hopes up: Parcells, who turned the 1-15 Fins into a playoff team in a single season, might not only be available, but interested! Or maybe Scott Pioli, the mastermind behind the Pats success.
But no. That despair we knew to be coming was made all the more bitter: two clowns who had been loyal Millen adjuncts, who had helped *build* this historically futile 0-16 team (Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand) would be replacing Millen at the top.
Yes, folks. After putting the worst team in the history of the NFL on the field this season, William Clay Ford decided that this would be the ideal time to promote from within.
Now excuse me while I go take gas.
Actually, the Rams were the worst team in the NFL this year, and before they produced a reasonable performance against the Falcons last week, it wasn’t especially close.
Say it ain’t so, Joe!
On the Jen Factor. My guess is that she benefits from the “Now” factor you mention but also two other factors.
(1) She must have the best publicist in the business. I have no direct evidence for this, but as you mention, is anyone on more magazine covers more often? If there was sabermetrics of celebrity, she would have a OPS+ of 200. That must reflect some supply side effort, because I have trouble believing that there’s that much demand.
(2) I think that she benefits from her boring-ness. I actually do. She is an attractive women, no doubt, but she is almost completely boring in every way. There was an old story in RS, I think, about how her dad, the soap opera star, once sent her away from the dinner table because she had nothing interesting to say. And she still doesn’t. Even her beef with Brangelina is boring. Brad left her for a more exciting woman. Um, yeah, I get that.
Being boring, she doesn’t alienate any segment of the population. She’s not crazy, she’s not really smart, she’s not political, she’s not particularly charitable . . . she dates other celebs, unsuccessfully, and does so-so or worse films.
Taking no risks, alienating no one. That’s a recipe for longevity, and mediocrity.
And being naked on a magazine cover is not risky.
And this is why I’m not a football fan….
Several contenders for worst team. “The teams out there are frightful” as Bing might croon it. But who’s the best? No one…couple of reasonably good teams, but not one stands out. And no team should be able to go from 1-15 to playoffs in one year. I realize that is good for fans, since the short attention span video game mindset needs action!, but it proves that the league has no continuity and parity has destroyed any possibility of it.
A bunch of dreadfully bad teams (good thing they get to play each other and somebody has to win) lots of mediocrity, and very little greatness is a recipe for individual, not team, glory. Boring playoffs. Lucky champions. But nothing fun to watch. Incompetence and showboating, my favorite combination.
Football is (was?) a team sport. How sad.
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize yall’s neighborhood
Lots of studio sports shows call ex-coaches “Coach.” Mike Ditka is regularly “Coach” on ESPN’s various NFL gasbag shows, and on College Gameday they call Lee Corso “Coach” even though he hasn’t coached in about 50 years.
Chiefs: 4 losses by 20 points or more
Lions: 5 losses by 20 points or more
Rams: 7 losses by 20 points or more
The one that kills me is “Doctor Jack Ramsay,” as if “Doctor” is his first name. Yeah, I get it, he has a Ph.D. Good for him. But I know lots of people with Ph.D.s (including myself) and nobody calls them “Doctor” anything, unless they’re being sardonic.
Oh, and it’s “Aniston,” with one “n,” by the way.
You should check out this blog post for more on the “fear” of Jim Rice:
http://stickandballguy.com/blog/2008/12/22/fun-with-baseball-reference/
Be sure to read the comments.
One important thing to keep in mind about Jennifer Aniston — she turns 40 this coming February. I know there have been great advances in plastic surgery, and she’s obviously already taken advantage of them, but in Hollywood terms , you know … tick, tick, tick. Pretty soon, she’ll be lucky to get roles as the mother of the ingenue.
And btw there’s only one ‘n’ in Aniston, Joe. Your highly paid fact-checkers are falling down on the job. [To be honest, I only discovered it when I was checking on her age.]
Jennifer Aniston is starring in “Marley and Me,” currently the #1 movie in the land. And she has a terrific publicist.
Denver was destroyed by KC AND Oakland.
Losing to Oakland seemed to be a fireable offense for a bunch of coaches.
Regarding Jen:
I don’t like the “famous for being famous” thing applied to her, because she actually does have worthwhile accomplishments on her resume. (I mean, come on, she was in Office Space!) I tend to reserve that phrase for folks like Paris, whose only opportunity to even attempt to accomplish something is a direct result of being famous for being famous. Say what you will, but at least Jen “earned” her celebrity.
As to why she stays in the spotlight, I think, honestly, it’s because people just like her. I don’t mean idolize her, or get all worked up over her, but there’s something “nice” and “wholesome” about her, plus people feel sorry for her because that cad Brad dumped her in so cruel and public a fashion for Billy Bob Thornton’s sloppy seconds.
Regarding Cowher:
I dunno, maybe someone with a better memory than I can answer this… but if the rumors regarding Schottenheimer coming in to put the organization as a whole back together are true, does that cause Cowher to say “no freakin’ way” or did Cowher and Marty have a good enough relationship when they worked together to make it more of an incentive? I was thinking KC would at least be a job Cowher might be interested in for non-football reasons — he’s worked here before and let’s face it, he’d get a parade if he came here, ’cause we all remember it was his defenses here that got him the job in Pittsburgh to begin with. But the Marty thing, if true, could either help or hurt there a great deal.
Boy, you guys are awfully tough on Jennifer Aniston, who can’t even get her name spelled correctly despite apparently being ubiquitous and overexposed for the last ten years.
She’s talented, and if more comedy movies were written with female leads maybe people would recognize that. There aren’t many female comedy leads out there unless you’re Tina Fey and you’re so brilliant you can write them for yourself.
She had the best comedic chops on Friends back when it was still a comedy show, and while she’s made some blah movies, she was also very good in Office Space, Rockstar, and The Good Girl – all of which were smallish movies she didn’t need to do as an already huge star.
I’ll add two more possible reasons why Jen is on the cover of People. 1) She’s the star of the #1 movie in the country 2) Every time she’s on the cover of People they sell a s**tload of magazines.
have a great and safe and good luck filled new year, Joe!
Happy New Year, Joe, and to all of the regular readers as well….
I hope this book that is in the works is a best-seller – and not just in Cincy!!
Oh, and MAJOR congrats to your brother! I know that I could/should lose 10-15 lbs and that seems more difficult every year!
Yeah, having a movie out and being pretty is plenty good enough to be on a magazine cover. She has the accessible type of pretty that fits in a lot of places, and she doesn’t really have the annoying tics of a lot of her contemporaries, like say, Renee Zellweger.
I do the best imitation of myself, but I don’t “love to mix in circles, cliques, and social coteries.”
Happy New Year to all!
Pretty impressive and inspiring news about brother Posnanski, and if you intentionally put it up there to help encourage people to stay strong when trying to meet their resolutions, kudos.
Jennifer Aniston was always huge – half the women in North America had Jen haircuts at one point, and when Friends was the hottest new thing, she was always the one everyone seemed to focus on. It certainly didn’t hurt that she was drop-dead gorgeous, but managed to straddle the line between cute and hot pretty well. Guys could be attracted to her, but girls (or the ones I knew at the time, at least) didn’t find her offensive or sleazy or threatening.
Maybe a tournament with the Lions, Chiefs, Rams and Browns would draw more interest than the playoffs? If there’s a market for 34 bowl games or whatever the number is, why not.
Writing this as a separate entry, as it might get loooong:
SuperScout Ellis Clary’s assertion that Rice could hit 95 home runs if he was in Atlanta, is just plain crazy talk, even without acknowledging Rice’s home/road splits, which suggested more of a 28-30 HR guy away from Fenway. What a preposterous piece of hyperbole. The all-time record was 61, and Rice was supposed to be able to blow that away by more than 50 per cent?
Even if we were to VERY liberally assume that Rice was a consistent 45-HR guy (his career high was 46 and he hit 39 three other times, never topping 28 in any other season) and that Fenway depressed his homers by 50 per cent (which we now know to not only be false but to actually be the opposite of the truth), that means he’d hit 30 on the road and 15 in Fenway. To get to 95, he’d have to hit 65 home runs in 81 games in Atlanta, and that’s just ridiculous. You’d have to pull pre-humidor Coors Field’s foul lines in to match those of the Polo Grounds to have anyone take a shot at that kind of mark.
There have been a lot of wrong-headed things written about Jim Rice in the past and there are more being written every day to bolster his HoF case, but Clary’s claim is beyond insane. It’s like saying that if Ichiro played in Colorado, he’d get 400 hits, or if Santana pitched in Petco, he’d have a 0.70 ERA.
“None of the other people in Friends are famous anymore.”
Matthew Perry was the star of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” which was a good show badly promoted and which only went off the air a little over a year ago.
Meanwhile, David Schwimmer directed “Run, Fatboy, Run,” which was a pretty good movie and seemed competently directed.
Nobody’s heard from the scarecrow formerly known as Courtney Cox or Matt LeBlanc, though, as well they shouldn’t.
I’m not sure if this still works (I think they would have to cut it off before long), and also not sure if you have seen this, but click this link:
http://www.0and16.com
In case there was any doubt.
Actually Aniston has two n’s in it- just not together. Sort of like Babar- two b’s – just not together.
Moon River- whoa- ever do any time Doc?
I think the Lions 0-16 season was almost more about their scheduling than their badness. Had they played teams like KC and St. Louis, they would have beaten either.
I’m really not certain how either Missouri team won a game. If you take away the Rams unexplained energy after the firing of Linehan, they would be 0-16 as well.
Imagine two 0-16 teams. Ouch.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that Courtney Cox will be guest starring in several episodes of “Scrubs” this season on ABC.
Courtney Cox did this cable show called Dirt recently that my girlfriend watched for a bit.
(2) I think that she benefits from her boring-ness. I actually do. She is an attractive women, no doubt, but she is almost completely boring in every way. There was an old story in RS, I think, about how her dad, the soap opera star, once sent her away from the dinner table because she had nothing interesting to say. And she still doesn’t. Even her beef with Brangelina is boring. Brad left her for a more exciting woman. Um, yeah, I get that.
Being boring, she doesn’t alienate any segment of the population. She’s not crazy, she’s not really smart, she’s not political, she’s not particularly charitable . . . she dates other celebs, unsuccessfully, and does so-so or worse films.
Taking no risks, alienating no one. That’s a recipe for longevity, and mediocrity.
this is exactly the reason another celebrity is famous. and if you read interviews with his creator, it was entirely planned (a brilliant business model that made him one of my heroes).
who is it? garfield.
Dwayne Bowe cost Mike Shanahan his job. Butterfingers.
And who, exactly, thought putting Bowe on the “hands” team was a good idea? Talk about a fireable offense…
Jon Morse
Jennifer Aniston may well have earned her fame; Friends was undoubtedly a popular show, even though puke-inducing to this viewer. But I’ll stand by my opinion that the people to whom the phrase “the Jen factor” could be applied are better covered by “famous for being famous”.
Number Three got it right; Aniston must have the greatest publicist in the business. A week or so back she took up something like 45 minutes on Letterman — giggled for 30 minutes, smiled that constipated grin for 10 minutes and talked drivel for five.
I knew Mr. Posnanski was great before…but to just drop a Ben Folds Five reference without any explanation boosted my opinion even more.
I see Joe’s noted my Lion lament in his SI column.
I mean seriously – if *ever* there was a time to blow a team up and start from scratch, you might think it would be after the worst season in NFL history. But if you thought that, then you don’t know the Lions…
in all fairness to Jen, The Breakup was a pretty hilarious movie.
Out of all curiosity, isn’t [09/09/09] = [09.09.2009]?
And that is the date when the World Cup 2009 (baseball) starts across Continent Europa?
Happy New Year to all you baseball archaeologists here!
-from Taipei, Taiwan
Jennifer Aniston is the Hollywood equivalent of Princess Di. It STILL surprises me when I come across a new Diana retrospective/memorial/”investigation” on cable, despite the fact it happens approx. once a week.
Darkness falls across the land, like a steers tookus (sp?) on a moonless praire night.
I DISAGREE WITH YOUR DISCOUNTING DAWSON’S ELECTABILITY BECAUSE OF HIS LOW OBP. CHECK RUNS SCORED WITH RBI’S AND HE COMPARES FAVORABLY. LAST I LOOKED RUNS WINS GAMES NOT HOW MANY TIMES YOU GOT ON BASE. SURE BEATS RICE AND MURPHY IN THIS CATEGORY. ALSO HIS STOLEN BASES BSMASHES RICE AND BEATS MURPHY AS DOES HIS GOLD GLOVES. HE EMBARASSES RICE FOLLOWERS AS RICE HAD NO GOLD GLOVES AND DAWSON HAD MORE THAN A HANDFUL. DDWSON BELONGS, RICE DEFINITELY DOES NOT AND MURPHY JUST BARELY MAKES IT. YOUR TIMING ON DAWSON SHORTCOMINGS POORLY TIMED TO BRING QUESTION OF MOTIVE.
JIM RYDBERG