"Hey! We're watchin' hockey over here!"

Been watchin' hockey all night while camped out with my laptop pretending to edit medical research, and we haven't mentioned it all night.

So... Aboot the league we go!

The Dallas Stars won their second road game in a row by attacking the Blue Jackets -- and all-world rookie goalie Steve Mason -- early and often. Mason was on the bench halfway through the first period and the Stars cruised to a 7-3 win. Rookie James Neal scored twice, and the Stars are now part of a four-team 53-point logjam at the bottom of the Western Conference playoff bracket. They have games -- plural! -- in hand on two of those teams, and a whopping four games in hand on Anaheim, who are two points ahead of them. After a truly embarrassing start to the season, the Stars are actually in a pretty decent spot as far as their playoff chances go.

Jeff Carter of the Flyers re-took the league lead in goal scoring with two on Friday night at the St. Petersburg Times Forum (conveniently located in Tampa), but held it for all of about 16 hours before Alex Ovechkin potted two in a 4-2 Caps win over Detroit. Detroit, which lost to the Stars at home on Thursday night, is a pedestrian 4-4-2 in its last 10 games and leads the red hot Flames (hardy har-har) by only 5 points for the second seed in the West.

A Caps tradition continues tomorrow -- a home game in the afternoon of Super Bowl Sunday. Matty and I attended one of those, versus the Flyers, on January 30, 2000, during a day-long snowstorm. With about a foot of snow on the ground that night -- and still falling heavily -- and having to go to work Monday morning, I decided I couldn't stay in DC for the whole Super Bowl, and my friend Aaron and I drove three-plus hours back to Philly. Just as the Titans were driving toward the tying touchdown (trailing by seven, 23-16) with the clock running out, we were approaching the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore. Not wanting to lose the AM radio signal, we pulled over and listened as Mike Jones ankle-tackled Kevin Dyson at the 1-yard line.

The Vancouver Canuckleheads -- still winless at home since the return of Mats Sundin to the NHL (and the return of Roberto Luongo from injury immediately thereafter) tied the Minnesota Wild on a goal by Ryan Kesler with 16 seconds remaining in regulation. However, one of the knucklehead Sedin twins took a dumb-ass penalty in OT and the 'Nucks lost AGAIN. Do you hear that giant sucking sound? With the OT point, the 'Nucks creep within a point of the aforementioned Western logjam.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how the St. Louis Blues suck so god-awful bad. Every time I see them -- which amounts almost strictly to games against the Stars and Flyers -- they play an extremely tough, disciplined game. They dumped the Flyers 4-0 tonight. It's hard to generalize based on tonight's game, which was dominated more by the officials than by the Blues, but do the Blues ever beat anyone other than Dallas and Philly?

With 5 minutes left in regulation, the Blackhawks hold a 4-2 lead in San Jose over the Sharks, who they haven't beaten on the road in approximately 6 years. They just got caught on a slow change and gave up a breakaway goal, but they've played brilliantly for the most part and are poised to hand the Sharks only their second home loss in regulation all season.

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This Player Will Self-Destruct in Five...Four...Three...

I love watching the Suns lose.

I much to my enjoyment, they did it again tonight to the lowly Chicago Bulls on their home court (after losing at home to San Antonio two days ago).

They are now tied with Utah for 8th in the Western Conference, a game-and-a-half behind Dallas, and trending down. Their rotation is a mess, with Porter pretty much throwing players out there at random waiting for somebody to show themselves as a leader, while not getting ass-fucked on defense. So far, no takers.

But the real concern for the Suns now has to be the mental state of All Star (JOKE!) Amare Stoudemire. Shaq has stolen all of his real estate in the paint and the Suns' style of play has exposed his game as totally reliant on Nash force feeding him.

Tonight, I think we can officially start the Amare Explosion Clock. Put it this way, his last point in the game came on a free throw with 4:48 to go in the THIRD quarter. His last field goal ATTEMPT came with 11:18 to go...IN THE THIRD QUARTER. He didn't have a made bucket in the second half.

You can hear the ticking from here....

Mr. Forest, Paging Mr. Tree...

In our Bullet Bob-induced froth, we neglected something:

Shannon Sharpe didn't get in either.

Say what again, motherfucker?

Sharpe retired as the all time leader in nearly every offensive statistic among tight ends -- since passed by Tony Gonzalez in most categories -- and has three Super Bowl rings.

Scratch my back with a hacksaw, I give up. We should all give up.

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One Last Thought on Bob Hayes

You didn't think I wasn't gonna chime in on this, do you?

Let me just let some numbers do the talking:

Career receptions:
Bob Hayes - 371 (210th all-time)
Cris Carter - 1,101 (3rd all-time)

Career Receiving Yards:
Bob Hayes - 7,414 (90th all-time)
Cris Carter - 13,899 (7th all-time)

Career TDs:
Bob Hayes - 71 (30th all-time)
Cris Carter - 130 (4th all-time)

Hall of Famers:
Bob Hayes - 1
Cris Carter - 0.

Not only did Cris Carter, easily one of the top WR ever to play the game, not make the HOF, he didn't even make it to the final cut this year. Meanwhile, Bob Hayes, who has been eligible for the HOF since 1980, is in after the committee created an extra-special-we-gotta-trick-fans-in-to-thinking-the-cowboys-are-actually-still-a-successful-franchise voting category.

Enjoy it Cow fans. It's the last thing you'll be smiling about for a long time. At least until they shoehorn Nate Newton in the Hall.

Dwyayayane Wade - Front Running Cry Baby

No, it doesn't make up for the fact that Wade (and Bennett Salvatore) ripped the 2006 NBA championship from the Mavericks, but seeing Dwyane Wade have a mini-tantrum while his Heat were getting outclassed and clowned at home by the Mavericks tonight gave me quite a bit of satisfaction.

After the Heat cut an 18-point deficit to 75-65 with 2:49 to go in the third quarter, on a jumper by the aforementioned Dyava Wade, I'm sure the Heat fans thought their team was going to punk the Mavs yet again. But Dirk and Terry hit jumpers and, while Dallas was in the midst of opening their lead up again, Poor Little Dwyane couldn't take it and promptly bricked a pair of jumpers, got a technical foul and easily could've been called for another one when he kicked the ball away from the Mavs players who were about to inbound it after, you guessed it, a Wade traveling violation. Mavs reeled off the last 5 points of the quarter, silenced the crowd and killed all Heat momentum and ended the quarter leading 85-70.

Drive home safely Heat fans.

Eat a bag of dicks Wade. Not so tough without your boy Salvatore, are you.

By the way, Dirk got to 30 points on 14 shots. That is almost impossible.

The New Cause Celebre of the Anti-Intellectuals: The Dallas Cowboys

"If we say something often enough, and loudly enough, you will accept it to be true."

The theory fumbled by the right-wing media somewhere between 2006 and 2008 has been recovered and advanced by the Dallas Cowboys in '09.

On his super-special double-secret bonus second chance for enshrinement, Bob Hayes was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Cris Carter (and his 130 receiving TDs, second all time at the time of his retirement) was not.

Cowboys fans always say Hayes "changed the game," but his numbers don't put him anywhere near consideration for the Hall. And what really "changed the game" is the way the Cowboys organization was run -- they were outside-the-box thinkers who were the first to scout small schools and traditionally African-American schools. And that's part of why Tex Schramm and Tom Landry are in the Hall of Fame.

In other words, Hayes was an effect, not a cause. If he hadn't "changed the game," the Cowboys would have found someone else who would have.

For years, Cowboys fans have bitched about the Steelers of the '70s being overrepresented in the Hall of Fame. No Steelers have been enshrined in the past 7 consecutive years; meanwhile, the voters are stuffing the place with Cowboys. Rayfield Wright got in, but the guy who ate Wright's lunch in Super Bowl X and sacked Roger Staubach three times -- L.C. Greenwood -- isn't. Dermontti Dawson was almost universally considered the best center in the league for a decade and he can't get close to the final vote.

So the Cow homers now have something to celebrate: the media circus around their Hall of Fame cause has been heeded. Bullet Bob is in the Hall. Better call the factory and put in an order for some Hayes throwbacks, Jerry.

And if it hasn't happened already, it won't be long before the NFL-watching public needs these yearly reminders from Canton of the Cowboys' greatness, 'cause the franchise's legacy of success is very likely to remain stagnant as long as Jerrel Wayne Jones is running the show.

Jerry can no longer demonstrate his efficacy by putting together a winning team, but he can still grease enough palms to get a bunch of old Cowboys in the Hall of Fame.

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Torre's Tell-All: Stupid Is As Stupid Does

I'm quite busy cleaning up baby poo, various types of spit-up, and attempting to sleep when ever a baby-less moment should appear, so I haven't had much time to think about what a massive hypocrite Joe Torre is.  The supposedly steady hand at the wheel of the late 90's championship Yankees teams has gone and written, well, this.  Well, he didn't write it, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated did, but Torre's name is on the cover and that makes him responsible for more than just cashing royalty checks.  

I'm fine with Torre writing a tell-all book about what a prima-donna A-Rod (A-HOLE!) is, how Slappy McBluelips is obsessed with Hey-Didn't-You-Used-To-Be-Derek-Jeter?, how Kevin Brown (of the padded room Browns) was found crying on the floor of the clubhouse in between innings of a game he was pitching, and how Roger Clemens liked to have hot sauce injected directly into his testicles before game time with a used syringe.*  I don't even care that Torre broke the 'sanctity of the clubhouse' or some such garbage.  What I'm not fine with (since Joe Torre is reading this I'm sure he is curious to know how this sentence turns out) is hypocrisy, and this book is full of it as much as Torre is.

Wasn't it Torre who excoriated Jose Canseco for writing a tell-all book?  Wasn't it Torre who... aw, hell, who cares.  He's a hypocrite, dammit.  A hypocrite, I tell you!  Sold?  Good.  Now I've got baby poop to clean up.  

*Or something like that, I don't completely remember.  Baby turds have an odd way of ruining what is left of your memory.  

Does Anyone Care About The NHL All-Star Game? (Spoiler Alert: Lame!)

We talk a lot about hockey and the NHL around here because, well, everything would be better if it were hockey.*  But one hockey-related thing we can't muster up much of a chubby** for is the NHL All-Star Game.  Most years the NHL's All-Star game is an offense-only place where goalies go to burn burn burn for all eternity, not dissimilar from the eternal fiery damnation of intelligent sports analysis in a Jay Mariotti column.  

All-Star games in general are just not a good idea anymore, if they ever were.  With the possible exception of baseball where injuries often come from over-use and can be minimized without ruining a game, hockey, football and basketball require varying levels of contact meaning every game contains a risk of severe injury.  Hockey features some of the larger moments of contact which can and do result in injuries.  When you give it a modicum of thought, the multi-million dollar contracts lavished on today's athletes make any exhibition an exercise in stupidity.  

How horrific for the NHL in general and the Washington Capitals franchise in specific would it be if Alex Ovechkin (with his 13 year, $124 million contract) suffered some sort of serious (or really even non-serious) injury during the all-star game?  Where is the incentive for the Capitals or Penguins to allow their $100 million players to participate in an exhibition?  Any reasonable fan of a team would be happy if none of its players were chosen to participate.

It is true that hockey and basketball (unlike football) can both be played with a more laid-back style (i.e. without defense) that minimizes the risk of injury, but the end result is a bastardization of the game where offense is boosted to ridiculous levels.  Yes, we all like scoring (only one reason soccer is so damn boring), but it's lame and pointless to select the best defensemen in the game and then anchor them to the ice for sixty minutes while the most talented shooters and scorers skate around them like cones in a driving test and make the best goalies in the game look like they're still mites on ice.  

Maybe they care about it in Canada (actually, I'm sure they do), but by taking intelligent injury prevention measures the All-Star game becomes a carnival barring little relation to what makes ice hockey and the NHL so amazing and fun.  Basically you either risk injury for no reason or you play something that barely resembles NHL-level ice hockey.  So, to answer the title question, in a perfect world the league would just take a week off to refresh its players and skip this exercise in ridiculousness.    

*Baseball, poon and "Weird Al" albums excepted, of course.

**By which I mean "penis"

Let the Debate Over Kurt Warner's Legacy... Begin!

After the Philadelphia Eagles took a 25-24 lead in the fourth quarter of last Sunday's NFC championship game, having scored touchdowns on three straight possessions while holding Arizona to consecutive three-and-outs, I really felt that they had total control of the game and were headed to Tampa. Now, not being a native Philadelphia sports fan, I am not consumed by the feelings of impending and inevitable doom that true Eagles fans suffer from, and being that the opposing team in this game, the ARIZONAFUCKINGCARDINALS, are perhaps the most star-crossed franchise in the NFL, I started imagining all of the bandwagon Cardinals fans that had just discovered that their city actually fields a NFL squad filing out of the stadium, never to be seen again.

Kurt Warner had other plans. He brilliantly led the Cards down the field on a lengthy scoring drive to pull the game out. Kudos to him. But what happened next is something that has had me perplexed: people are saying that Warner, even if he doesn't win his second Super Bowl, is a Hall of Fame quarterback.

My initial criteria for a player in any league to become a HOFer is that, when asked if a player is worthy of such an honor, my response must be immediate and affirmative. If I have to think about it, and be talked in to it, then I generally don't think the player is Hall worthy. Halls of Fame should be reserved for transcendent players who perform at a level of excellence consistently for a good length of time. For me, my instant response to Warner's case is "no."

"Ya, but remember the Greatest Show on Turf?"

"Dude, he threw, like, 115 touchdowns in 1999!"

True. But to really see where Warner stands, we gotta go to the numbers.

He has 3 seasons where he threw over 4000 yards (1999, 2001 and 2008) and has three of the top 30 season passing totals in NFL history. However, two of those three performances came in his first three years as a starter. After 2001, his passing totals were: 1431, 365, 2054, 2713 and 1377 yards. Pedestrian at best. Injuries played a role, but hey, that's part of the game. He has rebounded to throw for his second-highest yards passing this season (4583), but a full SIX seasons separated his 4000+ yard seasons.

Let's look at career yards then. Warner currently has 28,591 career pasisng yards. This places him BEHIND Brad Johnson, Rich Gannon, Jake Plummer, Jim Everett, Mark Brunell, Steve McNair, Boomer Esiason and Dave Kreig, none of whom will ever SNIFF the Hall of Fame.

"Dude! I said he threw a billion touchdowns! He was a machine!"

Yes, he was. For three years. In 1999 (41 TD), 2001 (36) and 2008 (30), he was an elite passer. But from 2002-2006, five seasons, he threw a TOTAL of 27 touchdown passes. That sucks. Again, part of it was injury, but part was the fact that he couldn't hold on to the ball or avoid a pass rush. He wasn't even a starter in some of those seasons. If you claim to be a HOFer, you can't go through parts of your career as a back up. Ever.

For his career, he has 182 touchdown passes. Guess where this ranks him historically. Guess dammit!

40th. Tied with freaking Steve Grogan. Sammy Baugh still has more TD passes than Warner!

Also, his career record as a starter is 48-37. Yaaawwwn.

To his credit, Warner is a two-time MVP, a Super Bowl MVP and two-time 1st team All-Pro. However, all of those honors came from 1999-2001. Nothing since. Not even a Pro Bowl appearance, and those things grow on trees.

Yes, he's a great story this year and has been sensational in the playoffs (ahem, thank you Larry Fitzgerald), but way too many people are trying to make him into something that he clearly is not.

A Hall of Fame quarterback.

Phillies Screw Up, Sign Hamels

The Phillies recently announced that they've signed their star pitcher, Cole Hamels. The deal, for $20.5 million over three years, covers Hamels' three arbitration eligible seasons. This is being treated as good news by many Phillies fans, but I don't think it is. Well, I don't think it's bad news. It's just not the good news it could or should be.

First, a bit of background. In baseball, a player reaches free agency after six years of service in the league. Free agency is when player salaries go way up, because at that point they can shop their services to the highest bidder. Free market blah blah blah crap crap crap you've heard it all before. But for the first six years all players are tied to the club that drafted them. So, unless the Phillies trade or release him, Hamels is Phillies property for the first six seasons of his career whether he likes it or not.

There are two important aspects to understand about this. The first six seasons are statistically the most productive of a player's career, so they are the most valuable to clubs and thus they should be the most expensive. But they aren't the most expensive. Instead they are the least expensive. During those first six seasons of servitude, the player is cost controlled. That's not to say the Phillies can pay Hamels a dollar for his services - there are some rules - but compared to what he'd make on the open market, a dollar isn't that far off. For the first three years in the league the player and the team can negotiate the player's salary, but the salary is ultimately determined by the team. So, if the player and team can't reach an agreement the team can just renew the player's salary at a small percentage increase (I think its about 10%, but that could be off) and that is what the player will be paid the next season. As you can imagine, this supresses players salaries to a huge extent.

That is what happened to Hamels last season. He and the team couldn't reach agreement, so the Phillies just unilaterally said, 'OK, you're going to make $500,000 for the 2008 season.' That's nothing compared to what Hamels would make if he was a free agent. Baseball Prospectus has a statistic called MORP (explained here) which essentially estimates what a player's value is on the open market. MORP estimated that Hamels was worth over $17 million in 2008. That means the Phillies saved $16.5 million compared to the price they would have had to pay Hamels on the open market.

Of course that's all theoretical because Hamels isn't eligible for the open market until after six years in the league. After three years of service the Phillies lose the right to determine Hamels salary unilaterally. At that point the player and the team can both submit salary figures to an impartial arbitrator, who will hear both sides and then pick a figure. This still suppresses player salaries over what they would earn as free agents, but its still a vast improvement (from the players perspective). Players are eligible for arbitration for three years and then they hit free agency.

Hamels is now eligible for arbitration for the first time, which was likely part of the impetus for the Phillies to do the deal. Because they own his rights for the next three seasons, Hamels new contract gives the Phillies cost certainty, i.e. they know what Hamels will be making over the next three seasons as opposed to having his salary picked each year by an arbitrator. Hamels gives up some potential salary (he likely would have made more than 20.5 million by going to arbitration each of the next three years) for the certainty of knowing that even if he gets hurt or suffers a downturn in performance he'll still get his $20.5 million.

Here is where the Phillies erred. Because the team controls the player, the team does not have to gaurantee the player's salary beyond one year, but they do because they usually get two things: 1) cost certainty, and 2) they buy out a number of free agent seasons. It is this crucial second point that the Phillies failed to capitalize on. Because the club is guaranteeing multiple years of salary they often receive additional years added to the deal tying the player to the club beyond when they would normally become a free agent. In short, by guaranteeing the player a multi-year contract, the team receives more years of service from the player at a discounted cost.

The Phillies didn't get any additional years on Hamels' deal though. They had him under control for three years and they signed him to a three year deal. Before the contract Hamels was eligible for free agency in three years and after signing the deal he still is. Oops.

For instruction on how this should have been done, I'm going to cite the Boston Red Sox. I know they aren't everyone's favorite team here (though they are mine) but even if you dislike them, its hard to argue they aren't the model franchise in baseball. The Red Sox just signed two of their arbitration eligible players to long term contracts, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. Pedroia's deal buys out two years of free agency with a club option for a third. Youkilis' deal buys out three years of free agency with a club option for a fourth. By signing these two deals, the Red Sox have bought out a potential seven years of free agency from two of their better young players.

The merits of the two deals signed by Boston can be argued, I don't mean to imply that they can't. But the Sox were able to use their leverage over the two players to buy free agent seasons at a fraction of what it would have cost them on the open market. The Phillies failed to do this with Hamels, and its going to cost them. If they are lucky it will only cost them lots of money, but if Hamels choses to leave it could have cost them a year or more of his services too.

Phillies fans may be happy with this deal now, but check back in three years when Hamels is eligible to leave Philadelphia and the Phillies have to pay through the nose to keep him.

Caps v. Pens: Shenanigans Of A Most Hilarious And Forthright Nature!

Late last night*, a group of Washingtonians, no doubt infused by youth with the spirit of pranksterism, snuck into Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena determined to perpetrate a hoax on the locals.  The hoax was specifically designed to result in their delicious humiliation.  Their plan was a brilliant one: to place a round slab of rubber onto a certain geographic portion of the arena's ice surface.  Ha ha!  Ballyhoo wonderfully conceptual in nature, fair gentlemen of Washington!  

To make clear that they were from this Nation's Capital City, and no lesser burg, they all dressed in bright red uniforms emblazoned with "Capitals" in stylized script across the front.  

Upon entering the building, the "Capitals" learned that the local tricksers had somehow entered into plans to prevent just such a scheme from taking place!  How the locals were able to overcome their lack of education and low birthright to even discern that such a scheme could be conceived of let alone take proper precautions to ensure against it can not be known. The targeted portion of the ice was surrounded on three sides by netting anchored into the very frozen surface itself, thus preventing the placement of any circular slabs of rubber!  But, upon closer inspection, the Pittsburghers had, as is typical of men of such low station, failed to secure the fourth side of the netting, as it was open to the ice on one side.  A fatal mistake!  

But, and begrudgingly to their credit, the local tricksters had located in very strategic fashion a watch-man of some sort, who's apparent sole occupation this eve was to prevent the Capitals from placing this rubber disk where they desired.  Quite a naysayer this man was!  What's more, he was coated in protective layers, to secure the safety of his person should any harm be threatened upon him.  Despite the late hour and contrary to many watch-men and other men of the lower classes as are often found in Pittsburgh, this man was as awake as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on Christmas night.  

As the "Capitals" took to the ice intent on perpetrating their brilliantly schemed hoax, they cleverly wore ice-skates so as to maneuver properly on the slippery surface.  To their surprise, they were met with the sight of several of the locals, intent on protecting their turf, and appropriately colored in the dark soot so common locally due to the presence of nearby industry.  Inexplicably these uneducated yokels had labeled themselves "Penguins."  The explanation for using the flightless, ugly, and clumsy waterfowl as a symbol was never elucidated. 

Soon upon entering the ice surface the gentlemen from Washington were able, through much maneuvering, to place the rubber disk on the desired portion of ice surface!  Success!  However, the dastardly locals soon removed the disk from its rightful place, thereby spoiling the prank in a most ungentlemenly fashion!  This disgusting display of sportsmanship gone awry was repeated over and over, six times in fact, before the locals were dismayed enough to accept the joke and the superiority of the "Capitals" in their midst.  Soon after they left the icy surface en mass, never to return.  

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In other news, I learned how to embed highlights.  Exciting! 

*now two nights ago thanks to babies who don't sleep.

Canned Coin: The Nairobi Trio

What could have prompted me to return to TOOOAST!!! after taking a sabbatical to demolish the transmission of Snizza's automobile? Why, this, of course:

We're in a poor era for nicknames in sports, with athletes more self-possessed and relentlessly marketed than ever before. Even in hockey -- the last refuge of goofy nicknames -- we're nearly bereft of creative nicknames.

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Not only have individual players been known better by their nicknames than by their given names -- the league was once populated by guys known as Gump, Ace, Hap, Boom-Boom, and Terrible Ted -- but there's also a tradition of nicknaming teams' forward lines: The Kid Line, The Punch Line, The Production Line, etc.

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The best of recent vintage was in Vancouver during the year that Anson Carter played with the Sedin Twins; the line was sometimes referred to as "The Brothers Line." Nicknames like "The Downtown Line" and "The Center City Line" have been thrown around in reference to the Flyers' current second line of Jeff Carter, Scott Hartnell, and Joffrey Lupul, because all three players live in Center City Philadelphia rather than in the South Jersey suburbs, where Flyers players have traditionally lived.

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(Yes, I hotlinked Anson Carter's name so I didn't have to point out he "happens to be black." Oh, wait -- he's Canadian, so we don't have to use that idiotic language. He's black.)

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After the lockout, when Blues winger Keith Tkachuk showed up at training camp looking rather like Terry Forster, some joker suggested that, whomever he played alongside that season, the unit should be called "The Buffet Line."

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And it is in that spirit that I attempt to coin a line nickname, based on the recent ape-like pugilistic actions of Capitals winger Alex "BABALOOOOOO!" Semin.

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Semin centered by Sergei Fedorov with Tomas Fleischmann on the other side: "The Nairobi Trio."

If you're not familiar,* The Nairobi Trio was a bit performed by Ernie Kovacs, one of the true geniuses in television history and a writer for MAD Magazine in its early days. Kovacs was a pioneer of sight gags and oddball characters, and had the first early-morning show in television history (in -- where else? -- Philadelphia), which proved that people would, in fact, watch TV early in the morning and prompted NBC to create "The Today Show."

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*If Kovacs hadn't been killed in a car crash at age 42, you would definitely know who he was. Seriously. He may be the one who discovered the universal principle, Monkeys = Comedy. An all-gorilla rendition of "Swan Lake"? That's gold, Jerry! Gold!! Within the technical constraints of TV in the early 1950s, he managed to pull off sketches involving office supplies coming alive to dance to a symphony, and of himself apparently smoking a cigar underwater. Light years ahead of his time. The ceremony in which he married Edie Adams was conducted entirely in Spanish -- in New York City -- even though neither of them spoke or understood a word of it.

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Jon Heyman Continues His Prodigious Douchebaggery

A while back I wrote about CNNSI.com's baseball writer/insider/cornhole stuffer Jon Heyman and his willingness to publish any rumor regardless of its validity.  Heyman shows zero compunction in writing any and all rumors in the hope that one or two of them might come true.  Essentially, he continually throws turds at the wall and then he'll take credit for the few that stick.  I won't claim to be the originator of the anti-Heyman movement.  The late, lamented Fire Joe Morgan has taken some quality and more-than-well-deserved shots at Heyman for among other things putting his head in sand and shouting "NO NO NO NO NO!!!" when it comes to statistics more advanced than RBI.  

But now the mantle has been picked up again by the quality baseball writers at Baseball Analysts (which I'm always tempted to pronounce "baseball anal-ists").  Rich Lederer, head writer at the site (I think), has taken Heyman to task for, well, for being a complete idiot.  Actually, its more than that.  Not only is Heyman an idiot, but he's proud of it.  Like the moron who named his kid Adolph Hitler and then had the audacity to get angry when the local bakery wouldn't put his kid's name on his birthday cake, Heyman isn't afraid to show off what a butt nugget he his.  

Take, for example, this from Heyman's latest appearance on MLB network:  "Its not about stats... its about impact."  Hey cheesedick, stats measure impact.  Heyman would have been an amazing baseball writer in 1880.  Unfortunately for him, many potential readers now have graduated from high school.  

The truth is Heyman is a reporter, not an analyst (anal-ist); and while he is a pretty bad reporter, he's a horrendous analyst.  He has zero understanding of what makes a good baseball player, he is completely incapable of arguing his point with even a high school level of competence, and his joy in repeating that he doesn't pay any attention to stats (other than, you know, some stats) borders on retarded.  

Other than that, I like the guy. 

Life Really is Good When You Wear the Big Blue Star

There's no hiding the fact that if your occupation is that of a professional football player, and your employer is the Dallas Cowboys, you get an undeserved amount of attention and rewards, even when your team runs with the dregs of the league in terms of playoff success. Somehow, just because you are a member of "America's Team", you escape the reputation that is heaped on players from the teams that share the distinction of not winning a playoff game since 1996. A full 13 seasons of ineptitude! That's right Cowboys fan, your team is running buddies with these bottom feeders: the Bengals, Browns, Lions, Chiefs, Texans and Bills. What a crowd, eh! We'll call it the Dumpster Divers division from here on out.

The point of this post wasn't initially to pile on the pitiful Cowboys, but I swing at the lowest hanging fruit, so there.

It was to show yet another example of how Cowboys, even former players, get preferential treatment, if you can call a potential carjacker deciding not to blow your head off "preferential."

Who, you ask, could have been the target of such a crime? Ironically, it was the one player who even level-headed fans of most of the other teams in the league would like to take a swing at: Michael Irvin, aka The Playmaker, aka Edward Scissorhands, aka Coke & Ho's Mike, aka Insufferable Radio Host.

Irvin put down his window because he thought someone wanted to talk to him and saw the passenger in the other vehicle raise a gun, the report said. Irvin said in an interview Tuesday night that he feared the men had planned to rob him and changed their minds when they saw who he was.

“The passenger pulled out a semiautomatic and I knew what time it was,” Irvin said. “But he said ‘Oh, that’s Michael Irvin, with the Dallas Cowboys.’”

Despite being scared, Irvin said he tried to keep the conversation going.

“So we started talking about the Cowboys and everything,” he said. “Then they got back on the highway.”

“I tell you what, I’m glad he was a Cowboy fan,” Irvin said.

Fucking hell! It goes from a possible homicide to the guys reminiscing about the glory days (which is all Irvin does on his radio show anyway).

Scene: a darkened, deserted North Dallas street. Two cars roll to a stop at a red light.

Robber 1: Alright man, roll down your window. This is the one, check out those 22's! I gotta have me some of those bitches. (Robber 2 rolls window down and motions for the other driver to do the same)

Irvin: Yo! S'up dogs? Oh shit! What's with the gat?

Robbers (together): Aw snap! It's Playmaker!

Irvin: You know it! You guys need an autograph or something?

Robber 1: Yo Mike, what would Jimmy do with these Cowboys? They a bunch o' bitches. You'd never let them play like so much ass. Back in the day, you and Emmitt never woulda taken this shit lyin' down. You'd a whooped some ass n' shit. Y'all were the bizzomb!

Irvin: You know it brutha. Oh hey guys, green light.

Robber 2: Aight. Peace out Mike. We'll listen tomorrow. Keep it real.


And now, the worst part is that this event will be retold on the air a kajillion times and everyone will treat Irvin with bigger kid gloves than before. Hell, Jerry Jones may even have a teary Irvin tell the story at halftime of the opening game in Jerry World next year while Bibles with the Cowboys logo emblazoned on the cover fall from the rafters.

Desecrating Memories of Youth: Tom Boswell And (Evil) Numbers

I kinda lost baseball for a few years in my teens. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the sport, indeed I still played it at the time, but the professional game had started to bore me. The preponderance of writing done about the sport in newspapers (this was for the most part pre-internet) just got old. The same story lines were ascribed to players repeatedly, and after a while, it just got to be like following a soap opera. So-and-so is good, so-and-so is bad/evil, so-and-so plays the game like it should be played (what ever that means) blah blah blah crap crap crap. In a word: boring.

Then I discovered statistical analysis, and baseball re-opened up to me. Who really was good and who really wasn’t were now questions with actual answers. Even if the answers are disputable, the idea that there should be some factual evidence cited to prove what one thought was a novel one.

This is why sportswriters who actively denigrate statistical analysis really piss me off: its straight anti-intellectualism. Its small-minded people afraid of ‘numbers’ protecting what they see as their turf. Joe Morgan is the perfect example of this. Sad to say this but Tom Boswell is another example.

I grew up reading Boswell write about baseball in the Washington Post. Although my childhood home of DC (actually the suburbs) never had a team, I always felt Bos did a great job telling the stories that surrounded the players, teams, and seasons.

Despite that, Boswell’s has really gone off the deep end. His recent comments about the National League MVP were bad enough, but apparently ol’ Bos still hasn’t got the message as evidenced by an answer that he provided in his weekly chat at WashingtonPost.com.

Centreville, Va.: Hi Tom - at work so I can't look it up, but my memory is that folks like Bill James, etc. would argue that Rice's success was due in large part to where he was in the batting order. Good BA, but not a very good OBP and the RBIs a function of having people on IFO him. I think their argument was that Rice wasn't really the best hitter on the Red Sox -- not as good as, say, Dwight Evans. Comments?

The questioner is referencing former Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice, who is a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is significant because Rice’s candidacy is one of those things that has become an attack point between those who embrace statistical analysis and those who don’t.

A bit of background: Rice was a home run hitter for the Red Sox in the 1970’s. His primary skill was hitting home runs. He did not do a whole lot else. For some reason, many sportswriters think he should be in the hall of fame. This isn’t to dismiss his career, but there really isn’t much actual evidence that can be used to support Rice’s candidacy. Of course, evidence isn’t necessary for some writers, like… well, I’ll let him dig is own hole.

Tom Boswell: Just rewatched the "Hank Greenberg Story" on TV. One of his teammates said that the thing he loved most in life, including women (he was a "matinee idol" type) was RBI. Greenberg was very articulate (as always) talking about the value of hitting in the clutch, how most games turned on a few key at bats and how the big HIT, not the big home run, necessarily, was the most important thing in baseball.

-What Hank Greenberg thought about RBIs as a statistic is really beside the point, but Boswell feels it’s somehow germane.

The walk and on-base percentage were underrated for generations. I was one of the (many) people who beat the drum for its importance. But it is now overrated. I have no doubt of it. It's just another insight that, over time, become a cliché until, finally, it is blindly worshiped.

-I don’t like using capital letters when writing. It’s almost always not necessary, but that said: There is NO WAY on-base percentage is over rated. No way. On-base percentage is the single most important offensive stat in baseball. The batter’s primary goal when hitting is to get on base, or to be more general, not to make an out. Outs are baseball’s clock, and when you make an out the clock moves forward. I once read (and forgive me for not remember where I heard this) before three outs anything is possible, but after three outs nothing is. That should sum up how valuable outs are. On-base percentage, the measure of how frequently a player uses up his team’s most valuable possession, is vital. There is no arguing this.

Over the decades, stats change much less than I'd have thought. It seems that, despite what coaches or teams may prefer in hitting styles, baseball players draw just as many -- or as few -- walks as they ever did. Some players walk more than others. It is their baseball "nature."

-This is a curious thing to bring up in reference to Jim Rice potentially entering the Hall of Fame. One of the major tenants of the pro-Rice people is that Rice didn’t have a high on-base percentage because it wasn’t a part of the game that was emphasized when he played. In other words, Rice should get a mulligan on this because of the era he played in. Of course, this ignores many players who did have high on-base percentages in the same era, but we’ll leave that point alone to concentrate on another.

Boswell says that the number of walks given out over the years has been relatively static (at least I think that’s what he is saying). If this is true, and I don’t know where to look something like this up or for that matter if Boswell has bothered to account for more players and more teams, etc., it would seem to suggest that some players are good at getting on-base (i.e. have a high on-base percentage) and some aren’t regardless of era. If we accept that getting on base is important then we have to conclude that Rice was one of those players who did a bad job of this*, and the era he played in had nothing to do with it. This would seem to be a reason to keep Rice out of the Hall, not to put him into it.

And some drive in runs better than others. If you asked everybody in the Hall of Fame what they thought of the idea that a player -- Rice -- might be kept out of the Hall, despite great RBI, total base and batting average stats, because he didn't WALK enough, they wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry. And they'd be right.

-Lets break this down. According to Boswell, Rice should be in because:

1. Rice drove in runs, i.e. got lots of RBIs
2. Rice had many total bases
3. Rice had a high batting average
4. Everybody in the Hall of Fame thinks Rice should be in

I think we can dismiss reason #4 as plain stupid and irrelevant. Reason #3 is just plain incorrect. Rice had a .298 lifetime batting average, which isn't awful, but is never high. Point #2, many total bases, is likely to be incorrect too, because players with high on-base percentages are often the ones who have the most total bases. Also of note is that Rice played in the 1970's and 1980's, an era defined by less offense, so he would likely be hurt (unfairly) by comparing his total bases to some other players.

Point #1 is bullshit because RBIs are a stupid stat. RBIs as a pure counting stat are pretty worthless in determining who is and who isn't a good hitter. RBIs are much more function of the lineup and where in the lineup a player plays. For example, take any player and put them in the middle of the Phillies lineup. They would get a lot of RBIs even if they weren't a good hitter simply because there would be many players on base when they came to bat. Now take that same player and put them in the Pirates lineup. Their RBI total would be greatly decreased because they simply wouldn't have the same number of chances to drive in a run.

Anyway, this is way too much to write about some stupid comment a sportswriter made in an 0n-line chat, but when you've spent the last three weeks cleaning poop out of babies butt holes, well, over analyzing baseball stats seems like a pretty good time.

* This is to say that Rice did a bad job relative to other Hall of Famers. This is always my baseline in this discussion – none of this is meant to say that Jim Rice was a bad player – just that he isn’t a Hall of Famer, i.e. not one of the best to ever play the game.

CSI: Pottsville

First thing's first: Bring on Stinkin' Phoenix!

(Note: "Stinkin' Phoenix is how the Arizona Cardinals continue to be known in Philadelphia. As in the following statement with a born-on date circa the late '80s: "They go and beat the Cowboys, then turn around and lose to Stinkin' Phoenix!" Point is: the Cardinals are so competitively irrelevant, who gives a jolly fuck what they're calling themselves?)

Now then. I'd like to bring attention to an extrafootballular storyline on which I'd like to see ESPN burn some tape this week: the 1925 NFL Championship and its theft by the Chicago Cardinals from the Pottsville Maroons.

As detailed by David Fleming in his excellent book, Breaker Boys, the Chicago Cardinals were awarded the 1925 NFL Championship based on a technicality after having been defeated by the Maroons, who had a better record, then the criterion for the championship. The then-owner of the Cardinals refused to accept a title he called "bogus," but the notoriously pin-headed Bidwill family purchased the team in 1933 and claimed the title.

Although it was the Frankford Yellow Jackets -- the predecessor of the Eagles -- who alerted the league to the technicality, the current ownership of the Eagles (and that of the Steelers as well) have publicly supported the recognition of the Maroons as at least co-champions of the NFL for 1925, as has Pennsylvania Governor (and boorish Eagles fan) Edward G. Rendell. There's even an online petition with more than 12,000 signatures.

The Bidwill family still owns the Cardinals, and even after moving the team from Chicago to St. Louis to Tempe, AZ, to Glendale, AZ, has persisted in its efforts to prevent the Maroons from being recognized as the 1925 NFL champs. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have won only one championship since '25, and haven't even come within two wins of a championship since the NFL first appointed a commission to examine the case in 1963.

This, some of the old folks in Pottsville insist, is the result of a curse passed down through the generations -- a curse that will not be lifted unless the Cardinals allow the NFL to recognize the Maroons as at least co-champions of the NFL in 1925.

.

Now, with the Cardinals reaching their first Conference Championship game since... Uh... Since the concept of a Conference Championship was introduced, none but the Philadelphia Eagles have the opportunity to score a win for Ye Olde Maroons and further the curse imposed on the Bidwills, pro football's First Family of Cheap Jerkoffs.

P.S. -- Go piss up a rope, Wes Welker!

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Unleashing The Fury

Seriously, did you ever think that in your lifetime, the loudest arena in the NHL would be in Washington DC?  Me fucking neither.  Check this shit out:

Happy New Year!!!

Its been an exciting year here at TOOOAST!!! Snizza, BMFS and I founded the site back in April because we believed that, through the core of our very being, there simply are not enough poop jokes (mixed with occasional sports commentary) on the internet. Ten thousand poop jokes later we still feel the same way.

Over the past year we've accomplished a lot. Please indulge me as I condense 2008 into a massive English-language-destroying run-on sentence:

We've babbled about baseball statistics that nobody really understands or cares about, discoursed on t-shirts that BMFS would frigg'n love, bitched about an inappropriately timed mentioning of pastries, covered Roger Clemens apologizing for helping to design the Pontiac Aztek but refusing to admit to murdering polar bears, helped Philadelphia realized that its not as fucked as it thinks it is long before The Sports Guy (or the Phillies World Series win), helped perpetuate the idea that the NBA blows (even if some of us love it...NOT IT!), placed Tha NUTZ on anything that moved, laughed as Ed Wade got his ass kicked by a guy with a seven run ERA, made new friends (even if she is a Penguins fan), celebrated a new basketball season, made fun of Cowboys fans and Redskins fans (repeatedly), posted the internet's only haiku-based American League playoff preview, laughed as Plaxico shot himself and Mike Singletary won us over by dropping trough, got a bit too close to becoming the internet's only Matt Millen fansite, discovered the joys of Lil' Wayne's sports blog, celebrated when our teams lost, intercepted Brett Favre's email (the opposite order of operations of most interceptions involving Favre), and been fans of the Redskins, Eagles, Stars, Capitals, Red Sox, Phillies, and just sports in general.

Through it all, we can only guarantee you one thing: we've had more fun writing it than you have reading it.

Cheers to another year of intelligent sports-related commentary/poop jokes on TOOOAST!!!

Oh, and thanks for reading.