Heat and Mavs

For the record, I think the Miami Heat beat the Dallas Mavericks and win the NBA championship.  Please keep in mind that I also thought that the Lakers would beat the Heat (sorry), and win the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

Maybe Kobe finally heard what the NBA trophy is called and decided against hugging and kissing a trophy named after a guy named Larry O'Brien?

Also, for the record, I am rooting for the Mavericks because of Jason E. Terry, who was a kid I rooted for when we both resided in Tucson. 

Jason played hoops for the UA. 

Me?  I rooted for him.  JT (then), JET (now) was a big part of Arizona Wildcat's 1997 NCAA Championship, and I had waited for that championship since becoming a Wildcat fan in 1974.

Big deal, right?  I mean what's 23 years to A Chicago Cub fan?

Hey, I have rooted for teams and players for flimsier reasons.  I just don't think the Mavs will do it.

Reason why?

2 stars are better than 1.

A World Turned Upside Down

Legend has it that the British Army band played "A World Turned Upside Down" at some point during the day that Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington, effectively ending the American Revolution.




Listen to me and you shall hear,
News hath not been this thousand year:
Since Heros, Caesar, and many more,
You never heard the like before.
Holy-days are despis'd,
New fashions are devis'd.
Old Christmas is kickt out of Town.
Yet let's be content, and the times lament,
You see the world turn'd upside down.

October 19, 1781

The MLB season is almost 33% complete, and at a glance all teams look to be reasonably placed in the standings, just as we may have all anticipated back on Opening Day, right?

Well no, they all don’t, not if you’re looking at the standings in the American League Central Division, where the Cleveland Indians (at 31-18) began Sunday a half game behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the best record in the Majors.

How the heck did that happen, and how is it that the (perennial contending) Minnesota Twins are so awful, they are making Seattle and Houston look like decent teams in comparison? How did things get turned upside down?

The Twins problems are many and varied, and as successful as they’ve been for a number of years, there has to be a fair amount of thought that they’ll get it together at some point soon, doesn’t there? I mean, once Joe Mauer gets back from the problem with his legs, Justin Morneau stops his Mario Mendoza impression, Francisco Liriano learns how to throw strikes again, Delmon Young starts to hit, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka returns from the DL, won’t they be back as a playoff contender?

Don't choke, Ozzie.

And if not the Twins, Ozzie Guillen’s Chicago White Sox should be able to take control of the division, right? Aside from Alex Rios stumbling around at .205, and Adam Dunn continuing to be horrible, the rest of the team has begun to hit, and Ozzie seems to have straightened his bullpen out. The starting rotation of Buerhle, Danks, Jackson, Floyd and Humber looks good enough to be an asset in the division, now that offense has started to come around.

The Detroit Tigers are a few stars in search of anyone else that can play the game. Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and Rick Porcello form three-fifth’s of a good rotation, but the rest of the staff has had problems. Beyond Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez, the hitting is iffy. I’m not putting big money on either Jhonny Peralta or Alex Avila to maintain their current production.

I still really like the Kansas City Royals to make a bit of a run, especially now that their front office has indicated a willingness to bring up some budding stars from the minors, starting with (first baseman) Eric Hosmer and (starting pitcher) Danny Duffy. A couple of guys named Mike await their call as well – third baseman Moustakas and starting pitcher Montgomery have a chance to form another M&M (or should it be MM&MM?) pairing that could dominate the game for the next 10 seasons. Billy Butler continues to evolve as a power hitter, and Eric Gordon has finally begun to live up to all the hype we’ve been hearing about since 2006.

So, what about the Indians? Are they here (at the top) to stay?

The Indians currently have the 5^th best team ERA in the AL, but aside from a possible breakout season from Justin Masterson, all of their other starting pitchers are pitch to contact guys. Is Fausto Carmona a good number 2 guy, or Josh Tomlin a good number 3? Maybe Carlos Carrasco will step up as many have predicted and become a dominant starter, but in the meantime, the Indian’s strikeouts per 9-innings rate is 12th in the league. Eventually, balls that are batted in-play tend to find holes in the defense, instead of gloves. Chris Perez is a solid closer, but the rest of the bullpen is comprised of many of the same shaky to bad performers of recent years. Will guys like Joe Smith, Tony Sipp, and Rafael Perez hold up over the rest of the season?

Cleveland has (arguably) a top 3 offense, but are they doing it with smoke and mirrors when Asdrubal Cabrera is leading the team in every offensive category, now that Travis "Pronk" Hafner has assumed his usual position on the disabled list? Asdrubal is a very good player, but is he this good, and even if he is, can he do it without more help during the next 112 games? How about Grady Sizemore? Is he really someone that will play the rest of the season and be productive, or will he again join Pronk on the DL?

On the plus side, the Indian’s have maintained their standing without much of an early contribution from right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, or catcher Carlos Santana. Some of the thanks goes to the third baseman Jack Hanahan, an unlikely source, and some must go to center fielder Michael Brantley, who looks like the real deal. Veteran Orlando Cabrera has been a steady presence at second base, and Matt LaPorta again appears on the verge of fulfilling the promise we’ve heard about for a couple years. There is a young stud third baseman named Lonnie Chisenhall that the Indians will probably bring up in June, and maybe he’ll contribute, but it’s far from a sure thing that he’ll produce enough.

Will the Indians win the division?

Maybe, but Chicago will have to lose it first.

I fart in your general direction.

I’ll close by saying that if the Indians are still playing on October 19, it will mark the 230^th anniversary of the British army surrender at Yorktown, and someone will have to stop me from standing on my head, and seeing a world turned upside down.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Gil Scott Heron

April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

The Posey Poser

The season looks over for San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey after a nasty home plate collision with Florida Marlins outfielder Scott Cousins in yesterday's game.

Eli Whiteside is the man now

There is no end to what I could say on this subject, but it would all boil down to not changing a thing. (I do think it's reasonable to have the "must slide feet first or the runner is out" rule in Little League)

This isn’t pro football, where I think the NFL needs to do things because the players keep getting bigger and faster, and it's not the quarterbacks getting hurt (too me) as much as it’s the pass catcher going across the middle getting hit. The average age of a former NFL player is about 20 years less than the national average, and much of that is concussion related.

We have been reading or hearing how Minnesota wants to get Joe Mauer out from behind the plate because of how catching wears guys out. The Giants had already started to use Posey at first base to save his legs, and keep his bat in the line up, as Cleveland has with Carlos Santana, who had an awful injury from a home plate collision last August. Detroit’s Victor Martinez DH’s most of the time these days.

Based on my somewhat faulty memory, and much better research, it’s apparent that injuries of this sort are outliers, not the norm, and it's really the base runner that's more in jeopardy.

Willie & Pat

The fact that Buster Posey is a young stud on a World Series champ makes this a bigger deal than we might ordinarily expect, in no small part because of what happened to Santana last August. If it had been Eli Whiteside (the "new" Giants catcher until further notice) that had gotten his leg broken, would we have anywhere close to the same reaction?

I can understand a call for change, but I am always wary of the slippery slope. I think there is a much greater vulnerability attached to the second baseman turning the double play than to a catcher blocking the plate, and if the rule is changed for catchers, what's to stop the take out slide to bust up the possible DP? The Twins lost their second baseman Tsuyoshi Nishioka early this season when the Yankees Nick Swisher took him out on a legal slide, breaking up a double play.

Since Ivan Rodriguez got hammered by Matt Lawton in April of 1999, I can find 5 other home plate collisions that ended up causing significant injuries to catchers: Ramon Hernandez (04); Johnny Estrada (05); Brian McCann (06); Yadier Molina (08); and Santana, last year. Maybe I will do some more research, or someone else can, but I think it’s a safe bet that we have less than one every other season over the longer haul.  I thin, because the last two collisions were so devastating, and happened to such young and highly touted catchers, many are over-reacting.

Fosse was done.

I recall Willie Mays taking out Pat Corrales back in 1965 with a spiked foot to the mouth, and Pete Rose (of course) clobbered Ray Fosse in the All Star game in Houston. Rose missed some time too, but of course with Fosse, it basically ended his career. There have been other collisions.

But how about all the base runners that get hurt, all the time? Should we ban sliding, and make each player jump on the base or plate when they arrive? Let’s ask Kendrys Morales?

I can recall Derek Jeter getting his shoulder smashed in a slide at third base some years back. How about Robin Ventura snapping his leg at home, Mike Lowell effectively ending his career off a slide into third, and Brian Roberts getting a concussion after a head first slide into first?

Owch!

I am not sure what could be done anyway, short of invoking a "must slide rule," and I sure as hell don't want to see that happen.

I bet if you ask him, neither does Josh Hamilton.

The Lebronfather

This guest blog was written by my son Matt, an excellent writer, and brilliant young man who has tied his horse (AKA a six-pack of Corona) to the wrong wagon.  It's 68-63 Bulls, starting the 4th quarter in game 4 as I post this.

There’s a scene in Jurassic Park where Ian Malcolm describes John Hammond’s handiwork:

“I’ll tell you the problem with the…power that you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it.  You read what others had done and you took the next step.  You didn’t earn the knowledge yourselves, do you don’t take any responsibility for it.  You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now—you’re selling it—you want to sell it.”

I posit that if Dr. Malcolm is around today watching the NBA, he would have the same problem with the Miami Heat.

As sports fans, we all typically suffer from the same malady: we admire in our favorite players the qualities we hope we would have if God or Darwin blessed us with the same athletic ability.  If we think of ourselves as humble, we admire humility.  If we like to talk shit but feel like we can back it up, we’re more understanding of those players who run their mouths but fire daggers that kill the other team every time.  If we think we would never, ever, ever quit, no matter what, we love players who are still diving for the ball down 20 with 3 minutes left in the game.  If we’ve worked hard for something our whole lives and don’t feel like we’ve quite gotten where we want, we feel for that player who has been around a few times but hasn’t been able to climb the mountain…until maybe now.

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are two of the best five players in the league.  Each one has been to a championship, and Wade won his with another Hall of Famer.  They are also 29 and 27 years old—not exactly pups.  They work harder at their craft than most people will work at anything their entire lives.  They have likely bled more, figuratively and literally, than most people will bleed for anything their entire lives.  (For the purposes of this story I’m going to just assume that Chris Bosh was not a factor in either the decision or The Decision.)

Am I saying they don’t have the requisite discipline?  Of course not, they’re both very disciplined individuals.  They haven’t put in enough time?  Of course not, they’re about the same age as Michael and Shaq were when they won their first championship, and older than Kobe Bryant, Bill Russell, Magic Johnson, to name just a bare few.  They don’t deserve to do what they want and play what they want?  Of course not, they’re grown-ass men, and have the same rights as everyone else in this country to live and die free.  So what’s the problem? 

Where do Dr. Malcolm and I get off saying the Heat lack discipline for what they did this year? 

If you accept our theory, consider the following:

They read what others (ostensibly, the Celtics) did and took the next step—or experienced it themselves, by getting the shit beat out of them every spring.  They brush off any and all criticism, as is their right, but they package it as simply wanting to do what they’re doing in order to have their best chance to win a championship. 

This is, quite simply, bullshit. 

LeBron and Dwyane could have played for any team they wanted; could have called up literally any team and said “Hi, we’d like to come play for you” and watched that team light itself on fire with the sale they had to get rid of players to get cap space.  Moreover, they could have played for the Chicago Bulls—the same team that is currently one offensive player from beating the Heat and probably winning a few NBA championships—with Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose.  Good Lord almighty, can you imagine?  The rest of the league might as well have taken 10 years off if that happened. 

But they didn’t just want to win. 

They wanted to play with their boys, in South Beach, on their terms, which is fine, except for the last part: before they even knew what they had, they were selling it.  They were holding their championship parade before they had even played a game.  They were talking about winning 6 or 7 championships before they set foot on a basketball court together.  They had never earned a damn thing, and then they complain about all of the haters?  Imagine that, the rest of an ultra-competitive league doesn’t like the fact that you’re bragging about all the championships you haven’t already won.

But they’re a couple of experienced players, who have both paid their dues, right? 

LeBron did carry the Cavs to that championship in 2007 with the 48 special. 

Wade put his body on the line time and time again before 2006 and after, and lost God knows how many games and years off of his career in the process. 

But LeBron’s run in 2007 was pretty much by default, blowing through an Eastern Conference that was less talented than the ACC, except for an old and arrogant Pistons team that was two years past its prime…and getting annihilated by the San Antonio Spurs. 

And Wade’s run…well, let’s just put it this way: from 1999 until 2011, the Lakers or the Spurs represented the Western Conference in the NBA Finals every year but one, winning 9 championships.

The Lakers/Spurs never played a team that clearly had more talent or a better coach; the Lakers lost in 2004 to the Pistons even though they were obviously the better team on paper, because the Shaq/Kobe dynamic was no longer tenable, and to the Celtics in 2008, when the Celtics probably had the better team—although the Lakers got revenge two years later, so you tell me?

Through the years of the Lakers and/or Spurs playing every in every Western Conference Championship Series but one, who did Wade’s Heat play in 2006? 

The Dallas Mavericks of course, who beat a San Antonio Spurs team that had won the title the year before and the year after; a Spurs team that had a gimpy Tim Duncan and still almost made it to the NBA Finals.  The Mavs took two games and a 13 point lead  into game three, and Bennett Salvatore took it from there.  Teams in this era are built to last, so how do you describe the Heat’s 2006 title in two words?

Dumb.  Luck.

Tell me that a healthy Spurs team doesn’t wipe the floor with the Heat? 

Child, please, and don't mention the fact that in the last 30 years, any team that has won an NBA title has won multiple titles (except for the ‘83 76ers and ’04 Pistons, two other dumb-luck teams historically). 

What does this mean?  The NBA is the league of dynasties, and statistically through the last 30 years, solo winners are historical anomalies.

Ok, ok, I’ve laid this grand foundation but what does it prove? 

Again, without diminishing the physical effort both LeBron and Wade put into the effort of playing the game, they were never successful on their own terms.  Their success was wholly dictated by the crappy teams around them.  So they got tired of getting pushed around by the teams they decided to emulate, and quite fairly decided to make a “super team” of their own.  But they never earned it.  They inherited a bunch of money and bought it.  Wade lucked into Shaq and his championship, but past that, neither he nor LeBron ever did anything differently in any year of their career.  Wade averaged 40 wins a year every other year but his championship season.  LeBron never learned to post up or really do anything offensively other than charge down the lane like a runaway freight train.  And the rest of the league passed them both by.  Do you ever get the sense that either of them had their heart broken by the losses they’ve suffered?  I don’t.  Wade won his when he was still young, and LeBron never seemed to give much of a damn about losing either way.  Maybe I’m just a sadist, and want to see a little pain before I can give credit for time served.

None of this should suggest that LeBron or Wade don’t respect or work hard at certain aspects of their craft, but their commensurate lack of discipline with regards to everything that happened from June until now is astonishing.  Not to dwell on the colossal, massive mistake known as The Decision, but LeBron and Wade jerked around not just Cleveland, but New York, New Jersey, and any other team or city or player that courted them for the last two years. 

Were they under any obligation to tell anyone about their future plans? 

Of course not.  But they didn’t exactly endear themselves to anyone in the process.  And LeBron owed the city of Cleveland nothing—let’s be clear about that.  But to do what they did, especially for him to go on television and break a city’s heart was—put in the parlance of our times—a bit of a bitch move.  No athlete has so completely destroyed his image and fan base without 1) committing a crime; 2) committing an offense against the sport (PEDs, gambling); 3) committing an offense against a woman.

Dwyane Wade, the ringleader, is the more fascinating figure in the drama in my opinion.  Shaquille O’Neal compared him to Michael Corleone once (he also compared Kobe to Sonny and Penny Hardaway to Fredo, but that’s neither here nor there.)  You can even extend the Godfather analogy to Pat Riley as the semi-retired Vito Corleone, and Erik Spoelstra as Tom Hagen. 

So who are LeBron and Bosh? 

Everything the Corleones didn’t have before they made their move from New York: the hotels in Vegas; the gambling; all of the other businesses; the national pull.  Just like the Corleones went all-in on their move to Vegas, D-Wade went all in with his move to bring together the big 2 ½ (I refuse to give Chris Bosh the rest of the fraction; his statistical production in this series is a complete statistical anomaly.  Carlos Boozer is making him look like Kevin McHale.)

In short, I have less of a problem with D-Wade.  He’s the mastermind.  Maybe he was just lucky enough to live in South Beach as opposed to Toronto, but somehow I don’t think so.  Somehow I just get the feeling that D-Wade was behind the scenes, pulling all of the strings.

Now LeBron…LeBron.  I’ve enjoyed watching him play as much as I’ve enjoyed watching any player over these last seven years.  He was (and still is) a joy to watch, breathtaking in his command of the game—in areas that he chooses to have command over.  The things I loved about him—his passing, his love for his teammates, the sheer unstoppable-ness of his game when he decides to be unstoppable—are qualities he still possesses, regardless of where he plays.  I don’t hate LeBron; I never did and I never will.  But he became a hell of a lot less easy to root for after his made-for-TV movie last year.

LeBron’s fans (also known as complete fucking bandwagon hoppers and 6,000 residents of Miami) will argue that he had a crappy team pretty much his entire tenure in Cleveland, and it’s almost impossible to debate this point, especially given the horrendous season the team experienced when it lost…only him.  LeBron was good for—literally—40 wins a year for that shit-storm of a franchise.  He played with exactly one current All-Star during his time there: Mo Williams, a perfectly decent player and All-Star replacement who only became an All-Star because he played with LeBron James.  It is undeniable that the team was horrifically mismanaged—they had a chance to make a run at Bibby when he was still alive and just…didn’t.  They had chance to get Shaq the season they lost to Dwight Howard in the playoffs and just…didn’t.  They had a chance to get a real coach and just…didn’t (yes, at one point Mike Brown was the next hot assistant and a defensive specialist, but after several years it should have become evident that the team needed more offensive game than LeBron in isolation over and over again.)  Maybe Danny Ferry thought that it would be enough for LeBron to play close to home, and he would just be content to stay there forever, shitty team or not.  But he wasn’t.

On the other hand…

Isn’t it strange that in LeBron’s whole time in Cleveland, he was never able to attract even one other perennial All-Star to come play with a team that was already getting 60 wins per year? 

Hmm, not able to get even one great shooting guard who would be happy to stand on the wing and average 25 points a game just because of the sheer happenstance that he was the recipient of kicks from LeBron’s drives?  Not one low-post player that would have wanted to take endless lobs from LeBron’s superlative passing?  No?  Is it possibly…potentially…maybe because LeBron would never commit to the team?  Would never commit to building the franchise past his second contract? 

You say chicken, I say egg, but it’s undeniable that LeBron had the better team than either Wade or Bosh at the beginning of their grand experiment, with not appreciably worse talent around him.  Of course, neither LeBron nor Bosh had South Beach, or no state taxes.

Leaving everything aside, the decision, the preseason championship parade, all of it, there is no excuse for the way LeBron quit on the Cavaliers last year.  None.  That’s the real reason I don’t think I could ever root for the guy again.  He had that Celtics team dominated in game two, and then he just decided he’d had enough—and then when people called him out on it he chalked it up to people expecting too much of him.  Like we’re so stupid that we don’t know.  In game six he looked like a guy who smoked a bowl and was trying to find his keys so he could drive to Circle K and get some Funyuns.  Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose might not have as many reps in the NBA as LeBron does, they might not have as many years under their belt or have acquired the same discipline that I so readily demand from him, but hell, at least they’re humble kids who work hard, praise their teammates, and accept criticism. 

And enough of all the hater bullshit. 

LeBron doesn’t owe me or anyone anything, but like Chuck said, at the very least he needs to suck it up and stop whining when people call him on his stupid crap.  All that really matters to me though is that I just can’t accept the fact that someone who would dick over that city the way he did should be able to just waltz into his championship the very next year.  Everything in me as a sports fan rebels against the idea.

Or maybe I need to suck it up and stop whining?  After all, LeBron’s “failures” are nothing more than the projection of my own thoughts onto someone else.  LeBron is our mirror—the ultimate scale against which we can all judge ourselves.  Sure I’m unemployed/beat my wife/ignore my kids/steal from my church…but I would never do that to Cleveland.  If I could ball like LeBron, I would ball until my legs gave out, until my lungs collapsed, like Eminem says.  And if I had the opportunity, I would never, ever quit like he did.

And it’s all bullshit, really.  We quit things all the time, we change jobs, we don’t give a damn about how the things we do affect anyone but a select few people around us—the people we choose to make a part of our lives.  And that’s what LeBron did.  He’s always been a guy who chose to play with friends—his boys—over the supposed best team that he could play for.  He could have played for any high school in the country, but he stayed home for St. Vincent-St. Mary’s, balled with Maverick Carter and the rest of the current LeBrontourage, and went #1 to the (not-hometown) Cleveland Cavaliers.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Nevertheless, if I’m given the choice, I’m going to root for young guns like Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant, and the old soldier Dirk Nowitzki—at least until they give me a reason not to.  Why?  Because that’s the choice I’m making.  They’re the people I choose to identify myself with now, and like so many relationships, you give people a chance until they fuck up.  If they relationship is strong enough, you get through it.  If it’s not or if they fuck up too badly, you don’t.  Well LeBron, I don’t think we ever really meant that much to each other.  Besides, I’ve met someone new—say hi to Mr. Rose.  You should be well acquainted with him at this point.

It doesn’t seem like either Rose or Durant are quite ready, though.  Like the ubiquitous not-ready-for-primetime players found on Saturday Night Live, they need to get a few more reps in before they make the jump to movies and carrying comedies that no one watches on NBC.  But Nowitzki?  Now there’s a guy who’s had his heart broken.  2006?  Up 2 ½ and lose the series?  2007?  The only MVP to get knocked out of the playoffs before being handed the trophy?  Yeesh.  Not to mention he could carry that collection of lost and ancient toys known as the Dallas Mavericks with him to a title.  It’s a great story.

Before the playoffs started, I didn’t give the Mavs too much credit to get very far.  I mentally counted them out of every series.  Well, as fate would have it, in this generational era of NBA dynasties it looks like the flash-in-the-NBA-pan city is going to get its heart broken by the other flash-in-the-pan city…again.  I was pretty sure I had all the answers—that the Lakers were going to win, that the Heat were going to lose, etc. etc. 

John Hammond thought he had all the answers too; he thought that by making all the dinosaurs female, he could control the population on the island by preventing them from breeding.  But I’m hardly ever as smart as I think, and Hammond wasn’t as smart as he thought.  Maybe Dr. Malcolm’s advice to John Hammond is the advice that every Mavs fan should take to heart right now:

“Life finds a way.”

Go get ‘em Dirk.  You need it, the city needs it, and the country needs it.  Soon, we will all be Mavs fans.  Don’t ask about those old legs, the lack of another superstar, the snake bitten coach, the history of ineptitude followed by soul-crushing playoff defeat. 

Life finds a way.  And a little discipline doesn’t hurt.

Harmon Clayton Killebrew

June 29, 1936 to May 17, 2011

The "Killer" died today. 

Think 1st or 3rd baseman.

When I was a kid I used to say "Killebrew will killa you," and that's what he did.  He was the pure best home run hitter I ever saw, and only Babe Ruth had more 40 home run seasons than Harmon's eight.

There were some big, strong dudes back in the day (the 1960's) when Killebrew was doing most of his damage.  Two I think of right away are Willie McCovey and Frank Howard, but they were much bigger guys than Harmon, who was (officially listed at) 5'11", and 210 pounds, though I think you could subtract an inch, and add 10 pounds to those numbers?

Some great Minnesota Twin teams in the 1960's with Tony Oliva, Caesar Tovar, Jimmy Hall, Bob Allison, Rod Carew, Don Mincher, and the 1965 AL MVP, Zoilo Versalles.  Yeah, look up Zoilo's record.  Good pitching too, with Jim "Mud Cat" Grant, Camilio Pasqual, Jim Kaat, Jim (Gaylord's brother) Perry, Johnny Klippstein, and Al Worthington.

It took Sandy Koufax to stop Harmon's Twins from winning the 1965 World Series, and Yaz's magical season for Boston to stop Minnesota from going to another World Series in 1967.  (By the way, I think the 1967 American League season may be the best one in history, if you like a wide open pennant race coming down to the last weekend, with 4 teams having a shot.  More on that some other time.)

573 lifetime homers.

Perennial All Star, Hall of Famer, and an all around nice guy.

Thanks for all those tape-measure homers, and some great memories.

Rest in peace, Killer.

Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and LSD

AKA: What happens when the wheels won’t come off?

Or, why Yankee and Cowboy fans really pay $15 per Heineken?

FOX’s weekly MLB telecast with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver is getting increasingly annoying, and last night’s game between the Red Sox and Yankees was the worst (or best, if you want annoying) yet.

Much of the broadcast was filled with all the mystery and intrigue surrounding the "last minute" extraction of Jorge Posada from the line up, after Posada reportedly told Manager Joe Girardi that he needed a "mental health" day off.

But as we heard more innuendo and rumor, could it have been that Posada was miffed about hitting in the 9 spot in the line up, even though his .165 average is so bad even Mario Mendoza would blush?

Nice tweets!

Yanks GM Brian Cashman chimed in with the fact that Posada not being in the line up wasn’t injury related, then Jorge’s wife (Laura) tweeted that her husband’s back was stiff, which Jorge himself stated after the game. Posada was also heard to say some critical things about Cashman opining during the game, which he didn’t like.

Hmm, to me that last part is equivalent to Jorge telling Cashman to go dry-hump a tangle of razor wire, so what is the real story here?

First off, I think Jorge needs to toss all of his wife’s mobile devices in the East River, because she’s not helping by posting something in conflict with what her husband’s boss (Joe Girardi) was quoted on camera as saying after the game. Now it’s true that Girardi may just be backing up his boss, but I don’t think so.

A lot of folks have been saying that Posada was pouting about being in the 9 hole in the batting order, which I also don’t buy at all. My take on Posada (and I hate the Yankees) is that he’s a pro, and always has been a pro. He knows he’s been awful, and that as he approaches age 40, he knows his days as a productive ballplayer are just about done. I just think he’s not (quite yet) ready to step away from the game because his pride is justifiably enormous. He doesn’t want to go out with a whisper, or worse, the way Steve Carlton went?

Carlton, after being one of the greatest pitchers of all time just couldn’t go away at the end, and played with 7 teams in barely three seasons before hanging it up. I say "barely three season’s" because in his final year (1988), he posted a 16.76 ERA over four games, giving up 5 homers in a little over 9 innings before he finally knew what we’d all known since early 1986.

I think we’re seeing more of what we witnessed this winter, when the Yankee front office played a little hardball with Derek Jeter, and told all of us that they think their captain is done as a star, but we’ll give you a $50 million dollar parting gift. Posada has the greater part of $13 million coming to him this season, and maybe that’s making it a bit tougher too?

For the Yankees, this is really what pundits mean when the say "the wheels have come off," but you know what…they are wrong.

This is what happens when the wheels won’t come off, and I know, because it is literally happening to me as I write this.

I like it with a little salt & lime

You see, I have an old truck that spends each winter encased in ice and snow, and about two weeks ago I cranked it up for another gardening season. It runs fine, but I ended up with a flat tire when a stem cracked as I was filling a tire with air. No problem, just pop the tire off and get it fixed, but the wheel won’t come off – it is fused on due to rust. (And yes, Parnelli Jones, I have taken off all the freaking lug nuts) I have pounded the wheel with a sledge-hammer, and used some stuff called PB Blaster that every Goober and Gomer swears by as a rust dissolver, but you know what…they are wrong.

The Yankees can spray all the PB Blaster on Posada that they want, just as they pounded Derek Jeter with that sledge-hammer, and it would appear both of them for now will be taking the Steve Carlton path off the main stage. The big saving grace with Carlton was he never spoke to the media the last 15 or so years of his career. In a way, not unlike Jeter, who has never told us anything, really, ever. Maybe Jorge should rent some scuba gear and go diving for his wife’s Blackberry and Ipad before it gets rusty? I’d send him what’s left of my PB Blaster, but I drank the rest of it with a little salt and lime.

On a different note, have you seen the story about the concession business that serves the fat cats at Yankee and Dallas Cowboy games those $15 beers? Oh, I’m sorry, the beers are really $12 and change, but patrons are told that a 20% gratuity is added, even though that "tip" is not given to the server.

Lovely. Makes me want to attend a game, drink 10 Heineken’s, give the server a $100 tip each time, and then throw the bottles at Jerry Jones or the Bosses boys so they can redeem them for the deposit. I think they need the cash.

Oh yeah, there was the game last night too. Wow, all this entertainment, plus a baseball game!

The Sox shutout the increasingly inept Yanks, and I can’t help but think this really is the year the bottom falls out in New York. Mix Jeter and Posada with Ivan Nova, Phil Hughes, Bartolo Colon, and Freddie Garcia, and that’s bad enough. But then toss on a fast fading ARod, a .213 hitting Nick Swisher, and a .250 hitting Mark Teixeira and this team would be in last place except for 4 guys. However long Sabathia, Cano, Granderson and Martin can carry this team won’t be long enough to keep them from being a .500 team or worse if things don’t change pretty soon.

Don't you want somebody to love?

Enough baseball though, back on the entertainment side the boys in the booth welcomed in Sarah Silverman, writer, actress, comedian and lovely New England Jewess (and erstwhile Red Sox fan) of some renown.

When Joe Buck asked her about how she felt when the Red Sox finally won a World Series in 2004, Sarah actually said the feeling was "bittersweet."

Huh?

From there, things morphed and oozed uncomfortably until Sarah said she wasn’t a ‘real’ Red Sox (or baseball) fan (I think I had that figured out), but did have some (random) statistics she could talk about.

I couldn’t believe when McCarver took the bait and asked her to lay it on America.

Sarah spoke about the late and immortal Dock Ellis, and how he had (claimed to have) taken LSD before pitching (a no-hitter) in the majors, and how "all pitchers should take LSD before they pitch."

Ellis D?

Only problem I see with this is that in all the acid I took back in the day, there was always speed mixed into it, and MLB has banned amphetamines, so might be some work to do, as we wouldn’t want players being suspended. Could you imagine Manny on LSD? Would the drug be restricted to use by pitchers only?

Where have you gone Red Barber, a FOX audience turns it ringing ears to you.

Baseball fever, catch the rush!

This has been brought to you by PB Blaster, $15 Heinekens, and Gomer and Goober’s Auto Parts.



Sha zam!

Seve

Severiano "Seve" Ballesteros Sota died last Saturday, at the age of 54. He was one of the most dynamic golfers the world had ever seen, and his hell-bent style earned him appropriate comparisons to Arnold Palmer. The way he was able to ‘manufacture’ golf shots from horrible places drew even more apt comparisons, to Harry Houdini.

Over the last few days, hundreds of people in and around the game of golf have told us how great Seve was, and they are all correct. He made golf relevant in Europe again when he became the first golfer from continental Europe in 72 years to win the British Open in 1979. He was 22 years old. If anyone doubted his ability, or wrote it off as a fluke, when he won the Masters the following year at 23 he put any doubts to rest. At the time, he was the youngest golfer to have ever won the Masters, as he’d similarly been the prior year, when he was the youngest player to have won the British Open in the 20^th century.

Seve turned pro in 1973, at the age of 16.

I began to play a lot of golf about a year after I moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1974. I was single, 23 years old, had a job working at night, and weather that allowed me to indulge in a huge passion for playing the game 365 days of the year.

Ballesterose was carding a lot of scores in the 60’s back then, just as I was. The difference between us was that I would then have to play the back nine, while Seve would have been done for the day.

" A 3 iron from here...really?"

Seve was a special guy to the hackers on the golf course, and an inspiration for me, and many other younger guys starting to play the game. Seve was wild off the tee, like his American counterpart, Ben Crenshaw. One of Crenshaw’s nicknames was "Tarzan," because he seemed to spend so much time in the trees from all his errant shots. I don’t know what the Spanish translation for "Tarzan" is, but that was who Seve was too, and maybe more so?

The difference was that Crenshaw could save his par, or even make a miraculous birdie because he was perhaps the world’s best putter for many years. Seve could putt, but his special skill was in being a magician. He was able to extricate his golf ball from places no golfer had ever been to, and with golf shots no one else but a weekend hacker would dare to attempt, and then calmly make his par or birdie, and stalk to the next tee.

Seve was often described as being flamboyant and dashing, as if he were some matador (seriously) or pirate, because he seemingly approached the game with such a devil may care attitude.

Master's Champ at 23

By definition, he was flamboyant and he was always dashing, but he was never devil may care because he always had a plan, his plan was to win, and that’s (very) often what he did.

I have played a few thousand rounds of golf in my life, a vast majority of them during the time that Seve became a huge star. The consistently wayward nature of my game constantly evoked thoughts of "What would Seve do," as I found my golf ball in one nasty spot after another?

He was one of the greatest competitors I have ever seen in any game I have ever played or watched. He burst upon us as a brash kid in his early 20’s, his long, dark hair blowing in the breeze as he studied his next shot from a parking lot. Then, a smile on his face after he slashed a 3-iron 173 yards out of a forest, around a grandstand, and onto the putting surface, 6-feet from a birdie.

I smiled too.  Vaya con dios, Severiano.

Dodger's Andre Ethier ties Cal McVey’s 30 game hit streak

Did you know that Cal McVey pitched in 31 MLB games, going 9-12 with a 3.76 ERA?

Me neither. I’d never heard of the guy until I looked up MLB’s all-time longest consecutive game hit streaks, and saw McVey hit in 30 in a row, back in 1876. McVey played all over the place in his 4-year career, mostly infield, but some catcher and a game in leftfield. If you care enough, you can check his numbers here: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=mcveyca01

Cal, in the Hub

With Andre Ethier's, there have now been 54 officially recognized MLB hitting streaks of 30 games or longer in MLB history, starting with McVey’s, and ending with Ethier’s, whose streak ended at 30 last night in New York.

As one might expect, there are some surprising names on the list:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats-streak.shtml

To me, the most recent ‘surprises’ are the Dodger’s Ken Landreaux (30 in a row in 1980), (the despised by NY Met fans) Luis Castillo (35 for Florida in 2002), and the immortal Jerome Walton (30 for the Cubs in 1989).

Ethier hits another walk off homer

Similarly, there are some names one might expect to see on this list, that aren’t there. Off the top of my head the biggest surprises to have never hit in at least 30 in a row are: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Al Simmons, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn, and Wade Boggs.

So, 54 streaks of 30 games or more works out to a bit more than 1 every three years in MLB history.  There are almost twice the number of teams now than there were in 1960 and prior, so I’d expect to see a higher percentage from 1961 on, and that’s true. There have been 24 streaks of 30+ since 1961.

I don’t know what kind of conclusion there is to be drawn from looking at the list, except that an overwhelming number of the players on the list were very good to Hall of Fame caliber hitters. There are only 3 names (other than McVey) on the list that I don’t recognize, and all four were pre-1900 players.

I don’t know how truly important Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak is (or was), other than that it’s one of those instantly recognized numbers in sports. For years many of us age 40-years and older were told repeatedly how great DiMaggio was by baseball writers and broadcasters. Beyond that we’ve been told that no one will ever break his record because of any number of reasons. One reason might’ve been that DiMaggio demanded to be introduced as the "Greatest Living MLB Player" at any event he attended? How could anyone break a "God’s" record? The flip side of this was Williams being a surly young SOB that few if any sportswriters liked, so in retrospect it was no surprise at all that it was DiMaggio that won the 1941 American League MVP Award.

Look, I am not here to insult the memory of DiMaggio (that much), but as fabulous as his 56 game hitting streak was, his 1941 season was not nearly as good as Ted Williams season was that year.

DiMaggio hit .408 during his streak. Over the same period of time that year, Williams hit .422. Williams hit .406 for the season in 1941, which was the last time anyone hit .400 or better. Williams hit 7 more homers, scored 22 more runs (leading the league in both), hit almost 50 points higher, and slugged almost 100 points higher than DiMaggio, and missed by 5 RBI of winning the Triple Crown.

This one or that one?

For good measure, Ted Williams on-base percentage that year was .553, which was the best of all time until some guy named Bonds surpassed it in 2002, so in many minds, it’s still the best mark of all time.

By all accounts, Andre Ethier is a nice young man, and very talented hitter.  I have no clue what kind of guy Cal McVey was.  He died at the age of 76 in San Francisco, in 1926. 

In 1926, Joe DiMaggio was a 12-year old kid living in San Francsco as well, 10 years before his MLB debut.  Joe grew up to be a socially insecure tight-wad, who spent most of his adult life doing everything he could to protect what turned out to be a very flawed image.

The best hitter that ever lived

In 1926, Ted Williams was an 8-year old kid, scrambling around sand lots in San Diego, honing an image of being a rasty brat that didn't give a rats ass about his image, whether he was giving the finger to Red Sox cranks, or being a Marine fighter pilot in the Korean War.

A jolt of joe

Joe apparently sent roses to Marilyn Monroe's grave every day for years, sold our mom's Mr. Coffee's, and became increasingly greedy and withdrawn as the years went by.

Ted led the Hall of Fame Veternan's committee that put a huge number of African-American ball players in the Hall, became one of the world's best bone fisherman, and finally tipped his hat to the crowd.

From Cal in 1876, to Andre in 2011, and the stories about that mystical 56 game hitting streak by Joe, just always remember that in 1941, Ted was the better hitter, and in life the better man.

What do you think, Marilyn?