Stupid People do Stupid Things

As I’m sure that everyone has heard, Buck O’Neil died Friday at 94. I had never heard of Buck O’Neil until I watched Ken Burns PBS documentary “Baseball” in 1994. I was living with my dad at the time and I remember watching every episode of that with him.

This was a great documentary. But up until the interviews with Buck, its watchability was average at best. I love baseball and was enamored by the look back at the old times. But Buck really injected life into the series. Yeah they had other former players that did interviews, but they seemed like old men who could barely remember what they had for breakfast, let alone what happened in 1930. But Buck O’Neil brought those black and white videos to life with stories that made my dad and me laugh. He was not only a great baseball man, but also a national treasure.

So looking back on this past year’s Baseball Hall of Fame vote is just another chapter in baseball, and more specifically MLB, screwing up another PR opportunity. Yes there were 18 deceased Negro Leagues administrators, players, and coaches inducted, but the two living legends on that list, O’Neil and Minnie Minosso were left out. Buck O’Neil missed getting in by one vote. To me that’s inexplicable. O’Neil was a great player on one of the great franchises in baseball history (KC Monarchs), the first black scout in MLB (he signed Lou Brock, Ernie Banks, Lee Smith, and Joe Carter to name a few), and became the first black coach in MLB with the Cubs. Not to mention that he has been a living, breathing, storytelling link to the great players of the Negro Leagues. But this wasn’t enough for that pretentious group of voters.

The only good that came from the whole ordeal was that Buck was man enough to do the right thing and gave the induction speech this past summer for those 18 lucky people. The fact that the board had the gall to ask him to do such a thing is a slap in the face to me, but to Buck it was an honor. Hopefully some day the Hall of Fame gets its act together and opens its doors to one of the greatest ambassadors the game has ever known. It’s just to bad that it will be too late for Buck to be here to enjoy it with all the people he touched while on this earth.

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So I obviously took a nosedive on my MLB playoff picks. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that I don’t bet on baseball. Thanks to the Cardinals for getting me off the schnide.

So with the CSs ready to go, I’m going to give some quick picks.

Tigers over A’s in 6.
Look for Rogers and Bonderman to be huge in this series. Rogers has always owned the A’s, and Bonderman was drafted by them. Bonderman is dyslexic and was insulted by A’s management who said something like, why should we pay someone a lot of money when they can’t read the contract? Needless to say he loves pitching against the A’s. Even in his worst season (2003, 6-19) he still managed to pitch his best game vs. the A’s (8IP, 3H, 1ER). The A’s will win Game 1 behind Zito, Detriot in Game 2 Verlander shuts down the A’s weak hitting lineup. Game 3 Rogers shows that he still owns the A’s with 7 strong. Game 4 Bonderman throws a CG shutout. I’m calling it. Game 5 will go to Oakland giving them hope going back west. Zito will torture the free swinging Tigers lineup. And Game 6 will see Verlander closing things out. Six strong, followed by Zumaya in the 7th and 8th, and Jones shutting it down in the 9th. Oakland’s anemic offense finally catches up to them in this series.

Series MVP: Justin Verlander and Ivan Rodriguez

Mets over Cardinals in 7.
Yes, this will go 7 games. As bad as the Cardinals pitching is they still have the best pitcher in the NL. The Mets pitching, to me, is just as bad. Glavine isn’t what he once was (though he looked like it against LA) and after that they have Steve Trachsel, a rookie (Maine), and a guy who hasn’t been good since 2004 (Oliver Perez). At least the Cardinal have Suppan who is capable is giving you a quality start and Weaver (even those he’s capable of melting down at any time, especially in New York). Mets in Game 1 with a solid game from Glavine and 5 shaky innings from Weaver. Cards in Game 2, Suppan is solid and the Cards lineup lights up Maine. Game 3 to the Cards, the way he’s looked I’ll be shocked if anyone beats Carpenter this postseason. Game 4 will be a shootout with Marquis and Perez pitching, and since the Mets have the better lineup I see them knotting the series here. Game 5 I’m going with the Cards, their bats will catch up to Glavine and Weaver will get a rare win at home thanks to the support of the red-clad faithful. Game 6 Maine gets his revenge on Suppan as the Mets bats knock him around a little bit. And finally Game 7. I know I said that Carpenter won’t get beat, but it won’t be him that loses. Trachsel hangs tough for 6, and once the Mets get into the Cards pen its over. A valiant battle by a resilient, veteran team.

Series MVP: Jose Reyes

I’m not even going to write about the weekend in football. Except to say that Mo Carthon is the dumbest coach in the NFL. Not just offensive coordinator. There are ball boy assistants that could run the offense better than him.

Is that a Titleist?

Some thoughts on this past weekend.

The baseball playoffs are finally set. I have to say that this was one of the more exciting regular season finishes in as long as I can remember. The Cards holding on over the surging Astros, the Dodgers fighting off the Phillies, and in turn the Padres holding off the Dodgers. And then throw in the Tigers collapse and the Twins winning the division on the last day of the season. I don’t care what anyone says I would much rather win the division than the Wild Card. Just a preference.

I was watching Baseball Tonight Sunday and they were talking that the Mets should be okay without Pedro because there really aren’t any good pitching staffs in the NL Playoffs. Excuse me? I believe that the Dodgers have three 15 game winners (Lowe, Penny, Maddux) that all have significant post season experience. Lowe closed out every series for the Sox in 2004, Penny was the #2 starter on the Marlins in 2003, and though Maddux’s post season record isn’t stellar, he will know how to handle the situation. And don’t forget that the Padres have a pretty good staff with Peavy (who picked it up towards the end of the season) and Chris Young (who was traded by the Expos/Nationals to Texas for Einar Diaz, straight up. That’s Omar Minaya, GM of the team with the best record in the NL).

So here are my picks:

Yankees over Tigers in 4. The Yankees lineup will just wear out the Tigers young arms. I see Kenny Rogers getting their only win. Unless Bonderman or Verlander is pretty much unhittable (don’t see that happening against such a patient lineup) the Yankees will stroll into the ALCS.

Twins over A’s in 5. This will be a better series than people think. The A’s pitching will stretch this only if Rich Harden is healthy. If he’s not, and they have to go Zito, Blanton, Haren, then they’re in trouble. Not that Blanton and Haren are awful, its just that they shouldn’t be your 2 and 3 pitchers in a 5 game set. If Harden is ineffective this goes 4.

Yankees over Twins in 6. Santana will win both games for the Twins and Brad Radke will give them two gutsy performances, but they just don’t have the horses. Matt Garza will be good some day, but not in 2006 versus the Yankees. And as well as Boof Bonzer has pitched lately he won’t be a problem for the Yankees.

Dodger over Mets in 5. Lowe, Penny, and Maddux versus El Duque, Glavine, and Tracshel. That doesn’t really seem fair. I know that the Mets lineup is loaded, but they aren’t the patient kind of lineup that wins in the playoffs. And don’t sleep on the Dodgers lineup. Lots of experience and the best offense that they’ve had this decade. Nomar will be big in the first two games in New York. Quick note, I just read that the Dodgers are going with Kuo in game 2. Grady Little rears his ugly playoff head again.

Cardinals over Padres in 4. I know that you may think I’m crazy for this, but I think the Cardinals are ready to click. They struggled so badly down the stretch that they blew their 1st round home field advantage and almost the division. Yes, they do have the Jeffs starting games 2 and 3, but I can see Weaver winning game 3 at home because of the way he feeds off of emotion. With the home crowd fired up behind him he can win that game. And then it’s Carpenter in game 4 at home. Did I mention that the Cards have Albert Pujols?

Dodgers over Cardinals in 6. Once again it’s the Dodgers pitching that will be the difference. If Little would pull his head out of his ass he’d go with Lowe, Penny, then Maddux. Sinker ball, power, then pinpoint accuracy to keep teams off balance. But he won’t because he’s an idiot. Pujols will get some help from Rolen, but it won’t be enough. The pitching staff just has too many shortcomings and Carpenter can’t make up for all of those.

World Series:
Yankees over Dodgers in 7. Once again this will go 7 because of the Dodgers pitching, and the Yankees thin pitching corps. But in the end that Yankees lineup will just be too much. Its kills me to pick them. But that lineup is just going to wear teams down like it did in the second half of the season. All of their hitters are patient and they don’t strike out a lot (with the exception of A-Rod). Their pitching could be their Achilles heal. If Johnson is either out or ineffective they’re in trouble. Wang has been good all season, but he’s young and he relies on that sinker and control. If he can’t get that pitch working he’s in trouble. Mussina will be fine, but after that you’re talking about Jaret Wright and Cory Lidle. Not ideal.

So there’s my playoff picks, now on to more interesting things.

If I worked in an office with chimps in suits and shirts and ties and lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills I would not be looking for a new job. That would be the best job ever.

My Buckeyes flag football team lost Saturday. We didn’t get to practice last week because we had a bad thunderstorm here Thursday. It really showed on Saturday. And we were missing one of our best players, Dae’Shon. But we still managed a 65-yard TD run to start the game and my boy RaeKwon had a 60 yarder in the second half. Unfortunately he’s a big kid and ran out of gas at the 5-yard line.

The Ohio State Buckeyes looked really good Saturday night at Iowa. That game scared me like the Penn State night game last year. But Iowa just couldn’t stop the Bucks running game. I think that was Antonio Pittman’s coming out party to the nation. And that was the best that Chris Wells has played all season. If they truly become a two-headed monster that will be scary. Oh, and Troy Smith was stellar. That TD to Robiske in the 2nd half was ridiculous. And Anthony Gonzalez’s TD catch and run has to be one of the top 5 plays of the year so far. And did I mention the defense. When are people going to stop bringing up the fact that they lost 9 starters on defense like it’s a bad thing? This is Ohio State. Like any top tier program, they reload. These guys that are playing now were ready at the start of the season. And Herbstreit brought up a great point Saturday. If you were only going to return two players, wouldn’t you want your 2 all conference defensive tackles? Pitcock and Patterson are both beasts and will both be first day draft picks.

Bowling Green also won this weekend at Ohio. The offense sucks this year, which will kill them against good MAC teams. If they would have had this defense the last 2 seasons they would have ran the table both season’s in conference. They go to the Horseshoe Saturday. I’m really hoping that the local station that carries the ESPN+ games will have it on. Go Falcons.

The Browns finally won Sunday. I was nervous going into this game because the Raiders were coming off of a bye, so they had 2 weeks to prepare for us. But thanks to 3 big special teams returns, Droughns remembering that he’s a 1,000 yard back, and some good second half adjustments they came back to win. Frye played well except for the horrible pick he threw with 4 minutes left. Rolling to the sideline and then throwing on up for grabs in the middle of the end zone. Even my kids know to throw that away. Idiot. But a wins a win and I’ll take it.

One more point on this game. I was reading the Czar on Foxsports.com yesterday and he was whining that the Raiders got screwed on a spot in the 4th quarter and then failed to convert the 4th down. What he didn’t mention was that it was 4th and inches and instead of sneaking it they handed to Jordan, and that the Browns got hosed on a spot on the ensuing possession. Only the Browns were smart enough to run a sneak on 4th and inches. Not to mention that both of these plays should have been challenged.

I finally won an NFL parlay bet this weekend. Jets (+9), Browns (-2.5,), and Pats (+6). It’s about time.

This summer I told one of the interns here, who happened to be a big Dolphins fan, that they would be lucky to win 7 games. He got so mad. This is what happens when you have a QB that can’t make a pre snap read and stares down one side of the field.
It was good to see Albert Haynesworth hasn’t forgotten what it means to be a Volunteer. Way to do fat Phil proud.

One more baseball related topic. The NL Cy Young is pretty much up for grabs because no one ran away with a bunch of wins this season. I would either give it to Carlos Zambrano (16 wins and a 3.41 ERA for a team that won 66 games) or John Smoltz (16 wins and a 3.49 ERA). Both of these guys were beasts this year. Webb or Carpenter will probably end up with the award. But Smoltz did finish 3rd in the league in strikeouts and 4th in innings. Not bad for a 39 year old.