Let's Compromise

I think I've finally figured out how to settle this whole AL-NL rules divide so that we can have six even divisions of five teams apiece, and all playing under the same set of rules. Here it is: the DPH.

Let him play!

Simply put, one of the biggest hurdles to unifying the leagues into one big, happy family is the fact that guys like Vlad Guerrero, Hideki Matsui, and David Ortiz can't play the field anymore, and if the DH is abolished, then whither these veteran sluggers? 

Add to that the fact that National League owners and fans don't want to lose the "strategy options" that having the pitcher hit provides.

So here's my idea: the DH is abolished and the pitcher bats ninth in all major league games -- excepting, of course, when Tony LaRussa does his pitcher-bats-eighth schtick. As is the case now, whenever the manager wants, he can pinch-hit for the pitcher and once this happens, the pitcher is out of the game. 

As long as I can still find a way to use this rule in a zany way...

Here's the difference: the next time the pitcher's spot comes into play the manager can once again use this same pinch-hitter (henceforth known as the DPH) to bat for the current reliever, which also forces him to remove the pitcher from the game. If he wants the pitcher to stay in the game, he has to let him bat, which will officially remove the DPH from being eligible to hit again in the contest (but he is then free to pinch-hit for future pitcher at-bats as he would any other position, in the current NL-style of play.)

I think this is a perfect compromise solution... it keeps an element of strategy in play, but also enables a "big bat/no glove" guy to get multiple at-bats in a ballgame. Comments welcome...

Worse than the World Cup

When an English team came calling on San Jose in a "friendly" who knew we'd see once of the lamest goaltending efforts in the history of the sport... Robert Green, you are off the hook.

This Guess Was a Double-Fault

That's M-A-R-D-Y.

Who is Marty the Fishboy?

Did you select A: a professional tennis player about to break into the Top 10? 

If so, I'm sorry to tell you that you are incorrect! 

Although American Mardy (with a D) Fish has an Olympic silver medal and is sometimes called "The Fishmonger" or "The Fisherman" -- "The Fishboy" is not one of his usual appellations. In the latest world rankings, Fish has risen to No. 11. 

Of course, men's tennis has lost a bit of its luster from the days of John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors -- the biggest controversy, it seems, with Mardy Fish is that he recently started wearing longer socks... the horror! -- so Fish is hardly a household name. 

In fact, you've probably seen more of his wife on your TV screen, as she was the keeper of "Suitcase No. 2" on Deal or No Deal.

One choice down... still no deal! 


More to come...

Nothing Smart to See Here, Thankfully

All sorts of awesome, with a cap-i-tal A, baybee!

Watch Out For Flying Chairs!

I caught about ten minutes of America's Next Great Restaurant on NBC last night, and already I am almost convinced that contestant Sandra Digiovanni (above, left) is really Coach Bob Knight in disguise. 

Please, whatever you do, DO NOT send your meal back to the kitchen!

In One Ear...

This week, I have an article up on ESPN.com about the Pittsburgh Pirates and their young outfielder, Andrew McCutchen. 

Some, shall we say, less-than-honest websites out there, starved for original content, will outright steal: cutting-and-pasting the text of my articles, and publishing them on their own sites. Actually, I noticed sites like these often will first run the article through a translator into some other language and then back into English, resulting in a phrase like "Ichiro is a strong bat" morphing to "Ichiro has the power of concussion."

So to save these nefarious evil-doers both time and effort, I ran my the first few paragraphs from my McCutchen piece through Google Translator, bouncing it around from English to Japanese to Spanish to Urdu and eventually, back to English... 

I'm sure my arguments need no further explanation:

The Pittsburgh population lost 105 attacks, it was a disaster. I blame the Netherlands. I go dismal fate successful pioneers include, finally, that the action plan from the next generation at all sites must be paid according to the last part. 

In all this darkness, there is one true sign of hope. He alone is of concern  among outfielders in total, because of his negotiations. We project a real danger of escape, a reason for concern, his course may have time to blow Hitoshi Hazime.

Samurai Pizza Cats, from Exec. Producer, Hitoshi Hazime Guri

Last year, look at crime statistics and the associated overall project, the number of players per team in accordance with the War. You must take into account the number looking for part-time work. Only one: McCutchen.

I use a bare chest.

Yoshi Yoshi, we need to win its first season. Oh, the pirates of the disastrous year of Miley Cyrus. "She's a star so far. We do not lose the bottom of the flower!"

Storming Time

We're No. 18!

Looks like it's once again time for me to write about my rules for storming the court at the end of a college basketball game. The short and simple version goes as follows: Don't.

99.9 percent of the time when you storm the court all you are saying about your school is that "We suck and we know it!" Now, that's fine if you're an 0-15 team and you upset No. 1 in the nation. By all means, go crazy. After all, in that case you're more than welcome to revel in the victory.

But at least in that case I understand why you'd want to go nuts at the end of the game. When you're No. 3 in the country and you beat No. 14? Don't storm the court. You're supposed to win. Be happy. Cheer like madmen! Stay off the court.

See this picture below? This is the celebration that happened after Florida State beat No. 1 Duke. A truly once-in-a-lifetime win that is certainly cause for euphoria, right?

Huzzah! Seminoles win! P.S. - WE SUCK!

Here's the problem... the picture above is not from last night (Wednesday) when said upset took place. It's from March of 2006 when the same exact said upset took place. Storming the court against Duke only says one thing to the fans of Duke: your team is better than ours. 

That said, there are a few exceptions to this rule. In my opinion, you are allowed to storm the court under the following circumstances without it reflecting poorly on your school. They are as follows:

1) You win the last home game of the season and in the process either win your conference title or complete an undefeated season. This is clearly a celebration of your team's season and the identity of your opponent in this situation is irrelevant. 

2) A spontaneous rushing as a result of a buzzer-beater. Nobody is going to call you out if rushing of the court seems natural... in fact this classic one at the Carrier Dome -- fast forward to 1:06 to get to the good stuff -- takes forever to actually develop. 

3) Huge comeback against a rival. It's not enough for a Big 12 team to come from 15 points down to a Great West  team with ten minutes to play to warrant a court-storming. When you're supposed to win by 40, a nail-biter is nothing to celebrate. However, if you're Michigan and you  score the last ten points to beat Michigan State, or vice versa... regardless of the records or the time of year, go for it.

Remember... storming the court is a grand statement by a fan base. Before you do it, make darn sure it's saying what you want it to.  

My 2010 Fantasy Football Logo

...continuing in the fine tradition that brought you last season's Rage Against the Muhsin.

The Shot Heard Round the World

We've been busy of late, but not too busy to feel that swell of patriotism that came with Landon Donovan's goal. As a longtime soccer fan, it's truly rewarding to see how this year's team has managed to get the country behind them...  Go USA!

Building a World Cup Title - Brick by Brick

Mexico's Coach Killed Laura Palmer

The World Will Be Watching - Repeatedly

Friday marks the start of the World Cup, which for a soccer fan like me, is a month of pure nirvana. As a writer for ESPN.com, I have the good fortune of being able to watch each and every game, and not feel guilty, since it is in fact, my work.

Those of you interested in playing a March Madness-style select the winners game can find one here.

I wanted to take a moment to explain one thing I wrote in the introduction to this game, as it has been the source of several e-mails from people with nothing better to do than attempt to find fault with my writing, where frankly, none exists.

I state that the tournament "will be watched by a worldwide audience of more than 26 billion people" and this has resulted in an unexpected bevy of criticism sent my way. Here's a sample:

"There's only about 7 billion people in the world. In your article... you mentioned that the World Cup will have an audience of 26 billion people. This would be impossible... Just thought you should know."

To this I simply respond... If I had said 3,674,495 people attended games at Yankee Stadium last season would you bat an eye? Why would you, since that was the official attendance figure - and yet, wouldn't you assume that many of those who attended games went to more than one? So the number of actual individual people who went to Yankees games was likely far less than the actual attendance.

With 64 games on the World Cup schedule, if the same 1 billion people watched each and every  game, then the total viewing audience for the tournament would be 60 billion people. It's simply adding up the viewing audience for each individual game, which is what the World Cup officials do when releasing the official "total viewing audience" figure for the event - which in 2006 was 26 billion people. 

Mystery solved. Population crisis averted. Please go back to your regularly scheduled activities - all 26 billion of you.

Tour-onto

You gotta love any group of guys willing to go that extra mile for the love of the game -- even if they don't really mean it. Enjoy!

Willis Others?

I've been having a lot of fun with Bad Translator, a website where you can type in any text you like, up to 250 characters, and it runs it through Google Translator, bouncing it back and forth between 54 different world languages and back again to English, over and over again until spitting out the final result. It's interesting what remains of the original meaning, and how much gets, with apologies to Bill Murray, lost in translation.

The title of this post was the result of sending Arnold Jackson's famous query "What'choo talkin' about Willis?" through the translator. Here are a few more 'results' for you to peruse. Can you guess the original sources? Feel free to post your guesses in the comments below. I'll post the answers tomorrow.

1. "Please think about the people in this country." - Baseball

2. "There are financial consequences, hearing and language means at the game console." - Basketball

3. "Games! Speak of - game gone riding, right? Note - 'seats of hair and heat'! Hope to win every race! Games!" - Football

4. "We will appeal process, but with hope ... Mensiummu now!" - Football

5. "I think you think? I think? I check? Finally, in the first three pages, please contact the winner!" - Baseball

6. "It is not." - Baseball movie

7. "Tuesday the price ... Mecca working! You! Yanko success." - Famous baseball call

8. "I love Moses Code, some group of people Dilantunkan." - Song lyric

9. "Eat!" - TV dialogue

FantasyLand the Movie

So, AJ, what exactly do you do for a living? Well, something like this…

Working Overtime

Hold on, Garrett... you ain't won yet.

Next week, the NFL owners will be voting on whether or not to change the rules of "sudden-death overtime" to something more akin to "slow, torturous anti-climactic overtime."

Under the new proposal, which would only - for now, at least - apply to the playoffs, a team that scores a field goal on their opening drive would not win. They would have to kickoff and give the other team a chance to get the ball. If the other team kicks a tying field goal, the game would then become sudden death.

NFL competition committee chairman Rich McKay explains the math behind the decision to make a change: "When sudden death was put in for 1974, it clearly worked very well and was a good system. It brought excitement and effectively broke ties. From '74-'93 you had a 50-50 (breakdown) in who would win between those who won toss and who lost the toss."

"Changes occurred over time, and the numbers have changed to 59.8 percent winning the coin toss and winning the game. The team that loses the coin toss wins 38.5 percent. We are trying to put in a system that emphasizes more skill and strategy as opposed to the randomness of the coin flip.

So what happened in 1994 to turn a 50-50 proposition into something far more unbalanced? A rules change by the NFL that moved kickoffs back five yards, shortening the distance that a team needed to go to get into field goal range - a range that itself became easier to reach as kickers got stronger.

It seems to me that is the problem, not the "sudden death." So wouldn't a better fix simply be to have the kickoff in overtime moved up five yards, back to where it was when you had the 50-50 win results?

Or better still - since you clearly don't want kickers deciding games, let's eliminate them from the equation as much as possible. Here's the new overtime rule I propose:"The winner of the overtime coin toss gets the ball, 1st and 10, on their own 20 yard line. First team to score wins."

Problem solved. If the defense can't keep a team out of field goal range from that starting point, they don't deserve to win.

But of course, the owners will probably pass this rules change so that teams won't be eliminated while their star quarterbacks sit on the sidelines helplessly watching, and next year's otherwise thrilling playoff games could end with a whimper…

"4th and 8, Kansas City back to pass, receiver open over the middle… Complete, close to the marker. We'll have to measure… The Steelers go to the Super Bowl!!!"

Missed it by that much... sorry about that, Chiefs.

His First Madness

I'll give Singapore - home of Richard Chandler - a day off, because today is all about the Madness. Yes, the annual winnowing of 64 teams down to a single National Champion begins today.

Now my son turned five earlier this year, and for the first time, wanted to know more about "all those boxes" on that sheet of paper I was filling out with all those "names of states." Yes, it was bound to happen sooner or later… he's finally old enough to have caught the Madness.

I explained to him the basics of the bracket - what the seeds meant and the whole concept of a single-elimination tournament. Then I let him pick each game on his own. To my surprise, he actually did a fairly decent job of it.

Kansas is his eventual champion, which is a very real possibility. Of course, his love of the letter "X" explains why he has both Xavier and New Mexico making the Final Four, but all in all, right now he's got as good a chance of his old man does at having a perfect bracket.

I'll keep you all posted as the Tournament moves along as to which member of the Mass family is less confused when it comes to college hoops. For the record, my bracket can be found here for your perusal, and heck if a certain "you know who" wants to donate a nice cash prize to the winner of this little family wager, who would I be to turn down the offer?

Time to Realign

I read that Bud Selig's advisory committee is seriously considering the concept of blowing up the current baseball divisional alignment. Of course, the idea they are currently bandying about is one of "floating divisions" which would involve only a few teams trading places, such as Tampa Bay and Cleveland, in order to provide their owners with a "trade-off." In this example, Cleveland would move to the AL East to get the financial benefit of more games against the Yankees and Red Sox, while the Rays could go to the AL Central to have a better shot at actually making the playoffs, which in turn would give Tampa Bay a financial benefit.

I think the fact they're even discussing realignment is a huge step, but if they are going to do it - let's go all the way. No more AL and NL. We have interleague games already, so that mystique is gone. Decide one way or the other on the DH (I'm in favor of abolishing it – especially since I don't need to see 40-year-old guys who can barely walk stay in the game long past the point where you can legitimately consider them athletes just because they swat the occasional home run – but either way, it's time to make the call) and build up geographical rivalries that truly matter.

Here's my suggested divisional alignment – each one with a 2/3 split from the current AL/NL divide. Six divisions of five teams each, winners make the playoffs. Top four second place teams play in a one-game playoff to see who gets the two wild-card spots.

California Division – Angels, Dodgers, Giants, Athletics, Padres

West Division – Rockies, Rangers, Mariners, Astros, D-backs

Central Division – Cardinals, Twins, Cubs, White Sox, Royals

Northeast Division – Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Mets, Pirates

Southeast Division – Marlins, Braves, Rays, Nationals, Orioles

Great Lakes Division – Tigers, Brewers, Reds, Blue Jays, Indians

Baseball fans, what do you think?

96 Problems, But Dartmouth Ain’t One

5-21? Sure! Come and dance!

The rumor has it that, perhaps as early as next season, the NCAA will decide to expand March Madness and invite 96 teams to their championship tournament – up from the current total of 65 teams. I don't know for sure if they will go through with it, but on the surface it seems to be a horrible idea.

Right now there are 31 college conferences that get an "automatic bid" to the tournament, and all but the Ivy League awards that golden ticket to the team that has a three-game winning streak at the end of the season in the conference tournament. Of course, that means that occasionally a truly deserving team from a smaller conference – like say, a 23-win team from the Colonial – in favor of the seventh-place team in the ACC.

While I do believe there is a bit of an inequity in this regard, I'd rather the solution be that a rule is passed that a team must finish in the upper half of its conference standings to make the tournament, rather than adding 31 extra teams to account for the one or two quality snubs that occur each year. An even simpler solution would be to – rather than have one play-in game between the two weakest conference tournament champions for a shot to play the overall No. 1 seed – expand the field by three to 68 and have a play-in game amongst the "last four in" and "last four out" bubble dwellers. Those winners would then be given a 12-seed and all would be right with the world.

If the NCAA suddenly hands out 31 more at-large bids, now you're looking at teams like NC State – currently in last place in the ACC making the tournament. That's insane, but it's what will likely happen. With 96 teams, the concept would be to give 32 teams a bye. Here's the only way I see this idea having any merit. All 31 (and eventually perhaps 32 – the Great West may one day earn an automatic bid) conference regular season champions get a bid, making the regular season actually matter. Then you still have the conference tournaments and award an automatic bid to that winner as well.

So what's to prevent a team like Butler from simply tanking the conference tournament to allow a second team from the Horizon Conference into the dance? Simple. First round byes are automatically given to any team that wins both the regular season and their conference tournament. You think a school like Morgan State wouldn't love to be given what amounts to an "8-seed"? They'd come to play!

It's not going to happen this way, but I'd love to see it. After all, the whole reason we love the first few rounds of the tournament is the potential for upsets and Cinderella stories. Why not encourage more of that rather than dilute the field to the point of homeopathic preposterousness?

Curl Your Enthusiasm

Wacky pants and swiffers - all part of the game.

I'm fascinated by curling, and have enjoyed watching it during the Winter Olympics. I can't quite explain why I am so enthralled by watching what my buddy PK is calling "Shuffleboard on Ice... What's next? Bingo on skis?"

And yet, I watch. But is it a sport? To answer that question, I go back to the criteria I spelled out in my very first post on this blog. How to classify curling? Hmmmm....

All athletic endeavors fall into one of the following four categories: A race, a game, a sport, or a judged exhibition.

It's not a race, although there is an element of time in curling - a team must complete all of its shots before their allotted time expires. Still, you get no advantage to finishing before your opponent, so curling fails to be included in this category.

Mercifully, it's not a judged exhibition either. It's hard enough to get those big stones to stop exactly where you want them too all the way on the other side of a sheet of ice without having to worry about style points. Curling is many things, but "artistic interpretation" doesn't enter into it.

So, we're down to a game or a sport. Since there is a highest possible score that can be reached, curling is a game. You can't get more than 8 points in an end, and even though that feat is nigh on impossible at this level of play, it still gives a ceiling to the competition. There reaches a point in many matches where one team's score is simply too high to beat, and as such, the trailing team simply concedes.

As unlikely as it is that a hockey team trailing 18-0 to Canada with ten minutes to go would be able to mount a comeback, the fact remains that they conceivably could pull off a true miracle on ice. That's what makes hockey a sport, but curling a game.

But so what if it's only a game... it's still fun to watch.