NBA Draftapalooza 2010: The Heyward Ultimatum

E-A-S-Y

The New York Post is mostly trash, but this is pretty awesome.


Take that, The Sun.

Also, this is my 50th post here. So that's also pretty cool.

TONIGHT: The Draft

I miss this.

It's been a while since I've posted, due to some business on my part. So apologies for that; I'll try to do a better job of keeping on task.

Tonight, of course (?) is the NBA Draft. I'm going to be liveblogging it here with some help from my friend Joe. As Pacers fans, our focus will be on whether or not Larry Bird can manage to draft someone who doesn't suck, but we'll likely also discuss Stephen A. Smith's inanity, ridiculous wardrobe choices, and whether tattoos make you a bad person.

Join us at 7:30 or so, for FUN and GLORY.

Soc-cer?

Will I care about one of these people? Or will it be some other group of people?

As I mentioned yesterday (and if you have ever watched ESPN, you're probably already aware) the World Cup is ongoing. My personal interest is ebbing for the moment; even though I have pretty much every match on the television, at this point I'm just waiting for the next U.S game (which is Friday morning). I will say that I was particularly disappointed in the Spanish for losing, though I'll blame it on my personal hero Cesc Fabregas being injured.

Just like the last World Cup, though, this one is having a strange and drastic effect on my life as a soccer fan. In 2006, I became one. I hadn't really watched soccer at all before that World Cup, and I ended up watching practically every game that was played, if not actually every game. From there I fell into club soccer via the next summer's Champions League (I'll admit that I almost became a Chelsea fan), and then I became a full-fledged Arsenal fan soon after, after some convincing by a friend.

Now, though, I fear that I may have gone too far. I am considering taking on an MLS team.

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Now, I know what you're saying. "Thomas, the level of play in MLS isn't high enough to warrant that commitment." "Thomas, you're already dangerously overloaded with sports, with all four major sports and the EPL." "Thomas, soccer sucks." And you're right, except for whoever said the last one. No, you suck, whoever you are.

But I don't think I care. No matter how worthless it seems to be, I think it may be time. I am a soccer fan, and I am an American, so it should stand to reason that I am an American soccer fan. It would be nice if someday, the MLS wasn't considered to be essentially a minor league, not even really on par with the lesser European leagues. So I'm going to jump on the MLS bandwagon now, I think, and get ahead of the game.

Here's the problem, though: I have no idea what team to root for. There's no team in Indianapolis. There is one in Chicago, but I am not really a Chicago sports fan, so I'm not sure whether I want to get into that. Typically I'm a New York/Boston sports fan, but I refuse to root for a Red Bull team, and for some reason the Revolution don't really do anything for me.

I'm thinking I may go old-school with my pick. I've always had an odd affinity for the Pacific Northwest for some reason; I think it may be due to my political leanings as well as the fact that much of my mother's family is from that part of the country. Also, I used to be a huge Mariners fan, back when Ken Griffey, Jr. was the best baseball player in the world.

There are a few teams in that area. Currently only one is actually in MLS; that would be Seattle Sounders FC. Also though, in the next couple of years two more teams will join MLS in the region: the Portland Timbers and the Vancouver Whitecaps. So I guess if I'm willing to wait until 2011, I can go with one of those two.

I'm really bad at making decisions, and since all of these teams are rivals I can't just root for all of them. So I am opening the decision to you, my loyal readers. If anyone has suggestions or input, I welcome it. I won't necessarily just count up votes, but I'll take all input into consideration.

Arsenal is non-negotiable, though.

This is awesome: Best rant ever

In honor of the Mets beating the Indians last night (barely, thanks to the fact that Frankie Rodriguez is incapable of making anything easy ever), I present to you the greatest baseball rant in the history of baseball or rants. This is Bruce Drennan, Indians sportscaster, decrying their crappiness.



I don't know what he'd do if he was working for the Pirates.

Music "Monday": Greg Graffin is my hero

There are few rock musicians whose Wikipedia articles start thusly:

Gregory Walter Graffin, Ph.D. (born November 6, 1964 in Racine, Wisconsin) is an American punk rock musician and college professor.

Greg Graffin, the lead singer for Bad Religion, is a paleontology professor at UCLA on the side. How freaking punk rock is that?

I'm having massive amounts of trouble picking a song to include, so I'm going with multiple songs. First is "Generator," from the 1992 album of the same name. It is awesome.



Next is "New Dark Ages," from 2007's "New Maps of Hell." It is also awesome. Epitaph Records is pretty awesome too, because they let me embed this video, which practically no other labels do.



Finally, we have "All There Is" off of 2004's "The Empire Strikes First." This is probably my favorite Bad Religion song. It is also awesome.



Bad Religion is a pretty good band.

Emmanuel Adebayor is kind of an idiot

It's the World Cup (USA! USA) and BBC is in full swing with their coverage of the tournament. Like most networks, they brought in "expert" analysts to help make sense of what's going on. Unfortunately, they decided to go with Emmanuel Adebayor.



And no, I'm not just bitter that Ade took Man City's money and ran, rather than staying with Arsenal. Seriously, I went through a year of high school and four years of college and I never once forgot to silence my phone. You'd think he'd manage to do that when he's on freaking national television.

This is why the economy tanked

Evidently, bros are icing bros at Goldman Sachs and Raymond James. One would think that they have better things to do than frat boy crap like this, but evidently managing all of the money in the world doesn't take that much effort.

I'm with Drew Magary. This is lame. Stop doing it, kids of America.

A non-Blackhawks fan celebrates

I am not a Blackhawks fan. However, my close friend Peter is. Peter introduced me to hockey, and I was lucky to get to watch Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals with him last night. The Hawks won in overtime on an absurd Patrick Kane goal, and it was honestly one of the coolest moments ever for me as a sports fan.

I see a lot of me in Peter's Hawks fandom. Hockey is his favorite sport, baseball is mine. He's been a Blackhawks fan basically from birth, much like I am with the Mets. Before tonight, neither of us had ever seen our favorite team win a championship; however, we'd both seen our second teams win (the Lightning for Peter, the Red Sox for me). And we'd both recently been close: the Hawks lost in the Western Conference Finals last year, and in 2006 the Mets lost the National League Championship Series.

When Kane scored, Peter jumped in my arms (me being the closest person available) and we all screamed and cheered and so on. And in that moment, I could see a possible future. David Wright hitting a walk-off home run to win the World Series. And I could see myself acting exactly the same way. I'm so glad that Peter got to experience that. Now I hope that I will someday as well.

In celebration, here is Blackhawk Dustin Byfuglien getting creeped on by Pierre McGuire. He's not the first, but this is probably the funniest.

Some things about Stephen Strasburg

The Blitzkrieg with pie on his face. Nice game, rook.

The history of humanity is littered with those who couldn't live up to the hype. Kwame Brown, Darko Miličić, Mark Prior, Brien Taylor. Every now and then, though, someone actually breaks through. When LeBron James was first coming into the NBA, and the hype surrounding him was at its height, I remember thinking that there wasn't any way for him to match expectations. Somehow, he did.

Seven innings pitched, 14 strikeouts, no walks.

I didn't think that there was any way that Stephen Strasburg could possibly come close to living up to the hype. I mean, Curt Schilling said a few weeks ago that he'd be the best pitcher in the majors the day he first stepped on a mound. These were lofty expectations that Strasburg had been saddled with. And somehow he actually surpassed them.
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I don't want to go too far into this, for a few reasons. Most of what can be said has already been said by people who said it better than I would have anyway. But I do want to mention a few things.

First of all, we need to not get too far ahead of ourselves. His first game was spectacular, but I've heard people talking about the Hall of Fame already. Nick Evans looked like a Hall of Famer after one game and now nobody even knows who he is. It was against the Pirates, it was a pitchers' umpire...blah blah blah. My newfound sabermetrics expertise leads me to say that the sample size is far too small to make a real judgement.

Now that I have that out of the way, HOLY CRAP DID YOU SEE HIM PITCH. I have never seen anything like that. Literally. I've been watching baseball for a long time, and I've never seen a pitcher like Stephen Strasburg, even for one start. I went to a restaurant with some friends to watch him. I was the only one who really wanted him to do well; one was a Pirates fan, the other didn't really have a reason that I'm aware of. They were both talking some smack before he started pitching. After about an inning, it died down because there wasn't anything to say. He gave up a home run; it was on a good pitch. He made next to no mistakes.

The most impressive thing to me was the fact that I was impressed by him. I'm not usually easily impressed, but at one point during the game I actually yelled with surprise at one of Strasburg's curveballs. It was moving at apparent fastball speed, and then it dropped about two feet. I have no idea how anyone's supposed to hit that.

It's going to be a little while before we know how good Stephen Strasburg's going to be over the long-term. But for one night, I'm willing to throw sample size and rationality out the window. That was a damned good performance by Strasburg last night, and it was fun to watch. And I am impressed.

(Could we ditch the "Mr. Precedent" nickname, also? Because it's horrible. Come up with something more awesome. Like The Blitzkrieg - after all, he does have a German-ish name.)

This is awesome: Wikipedia is my favorite

Okay, this is the best thing ever. Evidently Tom Izzo, coach of the Michigan State basketball team, is the king of Mars.

Click to embiggen.

That's right. He's not going to end up coaching LeBron James, he's going to coach the Monstars.

This is awesome: IKE FREAKING DAVIS

Ike Davis is my new personal hero. I've already commissioned a gold statue.

Stephen Strasburg is a chump. There's no way he can hit a ball this far. Ike Davis is already better than Albert Pujols, and he's closing fast on Lou Gehrig. Not quite to Keith Hernandez's level yet, though.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Stephen Strasburg is not a chump. This is all hyperbole.

Music "Monday": 1995 redux

Okay, so I missed Music Monday yesterday. Sorry. Like I said, busy weekend bled into busy Monday. So here's the weekly music fix a day late.

I'm going with Green Day this week. I have two reasons for this. First of all, Green Day is awesome. They were my first favorite band back when I was in elementary school, and I still love them, despite the fact that they're way overplayed on the radio. Of course, if you still listen to the radio for music, I guess it's your own fault if you end up with stuff you don't like - but I digress.

The second reason is the fact that Green Day: Rock Band just came out today. If you know my brother, you know that this is pretty much the best day of his life. I, on the other hand, have not gotten to play it yet. Can't wait to see someone try to play these songs on drums.

I went with "Brain Stew," because it was my favorite song in 1995. Also, it's a really cool song, and I'm in the mood for that.

Learning sabermetrics: a beginning

First of all, apologies for the slow weekend. I've had some other things going on, not the least of which is my ongoing attempt to find a paying job. Posting may be slower than it's been (like, down to two or three posts a day instead of four or five a day), but I'll try to keep up.

So now on to what I actually want to talk about. I have decided that I'm tired of just making stuff up, so I'm going to learn about sabermetrics. I know very little about statistics, so I asked my friend Nate, a noted sabermetrician, for some guidance as to what sources I should explore. I've decided to share my journey of self-improvement with you.

This one's going to be pretty short, because other smarter people have already done most of the work for me. Right now, since I'm at the beginning of this project, I'm looking for the most basic information available. I found a really cool source at Sabermetrics Library. Basically they have created a short online class on sabermetrics, including sections on why they're necessary, on the principles of the statistical process, and on individual stats.

I recommend the course for the uninitiated. If you prefer a more piecemeal approach, though, I'm planning on doing a continuing series on sabermetrics. So expect more to come, as I figure this whole thing out. It should be fun, and maybe at the end I'll be able to tell why Derek Jeter is so overrated defensively.

The least surprising thing ever

Pete Rose, circa 538 AD.

So evidently en route to the major league career hits record, Pete Rose was corking his bats. Considering what we know about Pete Rose already, this isn't surprising, and it's just another reason for me to not like him. I have many of those already, but this is a nice new one.

The best part is that corking your bat doesn't even help. So beyond the fact that Pete Rose is evidently a cheater, he's not even a particularly good one.

[via Deadspin]

Saturday Morning Amusement: Old Gregg

This is the greatest thing ever. It's from a British sketch comedy series called The Mighty Boosh. I have no way to explain it, just watch it. You won't regret the decision.

This is awesome: Why I'm rooting for the Celtics

There are many reasons, but this is high on my list.


I don't even have anything to add.

[via The Sports Hernia, who got it from SportsByBrooks]

EDIT: This is supposed to be an animated GIF, but it's not working. Just go to one of those links if you want to see it in all its glory. It'll be worth it, I swear to you.

Follow Friday: Amazin' Avenue

This week's Follow Friday blog is a good one (well, obviously I think they're all good, or else I wouldn't be recommending them). This week, I'm going with Amazin' Avenue, which is one of my favorite Mets-centric blogs, if not my favorite.

It's a really smart blog that leans toward sabermetric analysis (like most of the well-run teams in Major League Baseball) rather than uninformed gut reactions (like the Mets); however, it's not nerdtastic to the extent that the average reader won't understand what's going on. When I initially started reading I wasn't a stat nerd, but I still found the analysis they give to be incredibly informative and easily absorbed. There was the additional benefit of prompting me to start looking into sabermetrics, which has greatly enhanced my understanding of what the hell is going on in baseball.

The main reason I like it, though, is the fact that it has what I think is the most important thing a blog can provide, which is a community. The regular commenters are intelligent and contribute a lot to the blog, and they have a great rapport with the writers. All-around, Amazin' Avenue is a really good blog.

Suggested posts:
Jose Reyes Cumulative WAR Versus Other Shortstops: This shows how statistics can prove dumb sportswriters wrong for trashing players you like.
What Historical WAR Can Tell Us About David Wright: This shows how statistics can frighten you into thinking your favorite player may have some issues, but he also may not.
New York Mets Look-A-Likes: This shows how there are a lot of people around the Mets organization who look like famous people. Also, AA is funny.

An executive decision

I've made one. I'm tired of hearing about the not-perfect game. I'm tired of thinking about it. I'm tired of talking about it. I was going to write an enormously long post about it for today, but it's just annoying and there's nothing to be said about it that hasn't already been said. So instead of copying the echo chamber, I've decided not to add to the cacophony.

So consider this my post on the not-perfect game: it's a crime that it happened. He should have made the call, and the umpires should have conferenced to make sure the call was right. When they didn't, Bud Selig should have invoked the "best interests in the game" clause and declared it a perfect game; there is no "dangerous precedent" to set because this has never happened before and likely never will again. It is cut-and-dried 100% certain proof that instant replay should be expanded in baseball - as my brother said, "It's tradition to have the 'human element,' but it was also tradition to use the Pony Express to deliver mail and we got rid of that nonsense."

I may post later on instant replay, and on the recent overall incompetence and jackassery of MLB's umpires. I feel pretty strongly on both, and I think I have something creative to say. But on the subject of Armando Galarraga's newfound fame, I think everything that needs to be said has already been said.

One week

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Well, I somehow missed this yesterday, but this blog is now officially one week old. I know that one week is a really lame anniversary to celebrate, but I like anniversaries a lot, so back off. It seems like it's been way longer than that (especially since I think I've been through three different layouts thus far), but I think that's a good thing, somehow. Personally I'm just impressed/disturbed that in a week I've already had three posts tagged "vampires." That's the same number that I have on hockey. What the hell?

Anyway, thanks to anyone and everyone who's stopped by so far. Hopefully you have liked what you've seen, and you'll keep coming back. I'll try to keep coming up with words for you to read.

This is awesome: Best comeback ever

This is my first football post. I don't really like football, so that's why. Sorry.

Okay, so evidently Visanthe "I Don't Have a Real Name" Shiancoe and Darren "X Marks the Spot" Sharper are having a Twitter fight. The particulars won't be revisited here, mostly because they're irrelevant. What's relevant is Shiancoe's final salvo.

During a team visit with the Minnesota National Guard, one soldier "suggested a custom target for" Shiancoe, which he then tweeted:


Well played, Shiancoe.

The real hero

He used to make these catches ALL THE TIME. Most spectacular player I've ever seen.

I'm really upset by the non-perfect game last night. It's terrible that the game had to go down the way it did. But the biggest reason I'm upset is the fact that because of that horrible call, the greatest player of our time is being overshadowed on a day where he should be celebrated.

The third headline on ESPN.com today is the retirement of Ken Griffey, Jr. It's the second headline on MLB.com. Hell, even Fangraphs has more stuff on the imperfect game than on Griffey. And now I've talked about it for two paragraphs. And that is unfair to the career of one of the greatest baseball players ever.

Ken Griffey, Jr. was a large part of the reason why I'm a baseball fan. When I was a kid, the Mets weren't very good, and I wasn't a Red Sox fan yet. My connection with baseball was based primarily around my father, and the video game Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. I played the game and I watched Junior play, and I was obsessed. I had a Junior signature glove. I had a Mariners hat. If you know me, you know I wear my hats backward most of the time. Well, I started that because of Junior. He was my idol like probably no other player has been. And for almost everyone around my age, I think it was about the same way.
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It wasn't just the fact that he was better than everyone else, though that helped a lot. For a kid, there's nothing cooler than a player who can do everything - he hit for average, he hit home runs, he hit in the clutch. He was a spectacular outfielder (I can't find numbers on this, but I'll hit anyone who tries to tell me he wasn't the best centerfielder ever). He could run. He did everything.

But beyond that there was the persona. He was just so damn cool. Before the injuries, when he was still The Kid, Junior had this ebullient air of awesomeness no matter what was going on. He seemed like he was happy to play baseball, and it never seemed like he even had to try that hard to be great and to look cool doing it. That's where the hat comes into play, I guess. He was totally effortless in all phases on the game, and seemingly outside the game as well. He was like an angel or an alien who had been sent here to show the children of the world what baseball was supposed to look like. He was the commercial king before Jeter, too. I found a couple of old ones:





Events conspired against Junior, though. Parts of his career kept getting taken from him by factors largely outside of his control. His early prime was largely robbed because of the players' strike in 1994, at least in terms of public recognition. After the strike people pretty much stopped watching baseball; it wasn't until the home run race in 1998 that baseball really came "back." But some of Junior's best seasons came during that period. Hell, he hit 40 home runs in 1994 and the season ended 50 games early. That's on pace for 58 home runs (which would have been a career high for him).

That wasn't the worst of it, though. You're probably already aware of Junior's injury history. After he asked to be traded to the Reds, he was riddled by major injuries (mostly to his legs) that robbed him of the meat of his prime years. He finished his career yesterday with 630 career home runs. Since I'm evidently a numbers junkie now, I decided to run a number-crunch on how many home runs Junior would have today in a just universe. This won't be exact, as I'm making a lot of stuff up, but I have to for this exercise, so we'll just have to deal with that. The relevant variables are as follows:

Games: 2671
HR: 630
Seasons: 22

To correct for days off and minor injuries over the course of a season, I'm going to assume 140 games a season (his average during his first stint in Seattle). His HR/G rate for his career was 0.236 (to three significant digits). So assuming 140 games a season for 22 years, Junior should have 727 home runs. And that's a conservative estimate, since I included the strike season and a 72 game season (he missed almost three months in 1995 after breaking his wrist while making a catch) in the games per season calculations, and I didn't correct for the terrible seasons Junior had recently. Even with those caveats, he could have outhomered Babe Ruth.

There was another way in which Junior's career is a bit tragic. He very clearly was one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He did this during the steroid era, when it's been basically assumed that every good hitter in baseball was cheating (mainly because we've discovered that most of them were). And yet there's never been even a hint of a suspicion that Ken Griffey, Jr. was a steroid user. All the evidence indicates otherwise, even. Junior has never even been rumored to have failed a steroid test. His career arc roughly followed that of a non-user: spectacular as a young man, improvement into the prime, a plateau, then a steady decline into middle age. His body did the same thing: thin as a kid, strengthened into his prime (but not enormous), and then as he aged he got kind of fat and got hurt a lot.

He wasn't a user, and to most that just means that his numbers will be obscured by those of the sluggers who did cheat. That's a fair assessment; the 56 home runs that Junior hit in 1998 would have been amazing most years, but that year it was good for third behind Mark McGwire's 70 and Sammy Sosa's 66. McGwire's admitted to using steroids that year, and while Sosa hasn't, it's pretty much assumed by most people that he was, whether that's fair or not. He had huge numbers, but they weren't as huge as those of Bonds and the others.

But what gets overlooked is the fact that most of the pitchers were probably using too. Not only was Junior competing against hitters who were juicing, but he was batting against pitchers who were unnaturally good as well. If we take steroids out of the game, the numbers would drop almost across the board, most likely. But it's quite likely that Griffey's would actually have risen.

This is all very depressing. To think that Ken Griffey, Jr. should probably be atop the all-time home run list rather than Barry Bonds, to think that as good as he was he should have been even better...that all isn't much fun. So today, let's not think about that.

I got to see Ken Griffey, Jr. play several times as a member of the Reds, but I also got to see him once as a Mariner. It was 1999, and I was in Seattle with my family for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. All I cared about, though, was the fact that we were going to get to see Junior play. It was Ken Griffey, Jr. Hat Day, and when we walked in we all got these great hats, which my brothers and I immediately put on. What we didn't know at the time was that Junior was sick, and questionable for the game. He probably shouldn't have played, but it was his hat day, and he knew that there were going to be thousands of kids like my brothers and me who were there just to see him. So he played sick, and he made my childhood. Things like that are the things I'm going to remember about Junior.

So for today at least, let's not remember the injuries, or the years where Junior had to take a backseat to cheaters. Let's remember the diving catches. Let's remember the long flies. Let's remember the Home Run Derbies where he stood in the batter's box, hat turned back, and blasted baseballs deep into the night using nothing but a wood stick and his raw skill. Let's remember the video games we played as kids, and the heroes we had. Let's remember him as Junior. Let's remember him as the Kid. Today, let's remember Ken Griffey, Jr.'s career not as what it could or should have been, but as what it was: one of the greatest in the history of Major League Baseball.

This (Sean Casey) is awesome

I just came across this video while looking at stuff for the thing I'm writing on Ken Griffey, Jr. for later, and it displays two things. First, Ken is not the best ever at reading lines. Secondly, though, and more importantly, Sean Casey is awesome.

A bad day

In some alternate universe Junior never got hurt, and he hit 760 home runs. And nobody cared about Barry Bonds.

Yesterday was quite possibly the most depressing day I've had as a baseball fan since Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS (the 97-win Mets inexplicably losing to the not-that-good Cardinals). It was just very upsetting.

I'm planning on going into more detail about all of this later, but I was unhappy enough when I found out that Ken Griffey, Jr. was retiring. The Armando Galarraga/Jim Joyce snafu made things even worse. And then the Mets lost in about the worst way possible: Johan pitches well, Ass-Rod blows the save, and there's a walk-off grand slam.

Clearly I have done something to anger the baseball gods. I offer them this sacrifice, to appease them:

God, I hate him.

WAR JOHAN

This one needs a little explanation. It was requested in a comment thread on Amazin' Avenue, and I answered the call. Santana is pitching for the Mets this evening, and hopefully he'll be able to smite the Padres. You know, with that enormous sword.



So...yeah. WAR JOHAN.

I think I want to see this movie: Scott Pilgrim

I don't read comic books. It's not because I hate them or anything, I just never got into them. So basically every time Hollywood sees fit to make another comic book movie, I go in blind, with no expectations based on the original story. This helps me enjoy them a lot more, I think - whenever I see a Harry Potter movie, I'm a little disappointed by the fact that they don't live up to the books. So I understand how avid comic book fans feel.

But I have never read any of the Scott Pilgrim comics, so I have no preconceived notions about the upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I know nothing about the characters or the plot. I don't know whether the filmmakers are going to do it "right." All I know is what I see in the trailers, and because of that, I think that this might be awesome.
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Here is the newest trailer for the film.



There's a list of reasons why this looks good. First of all, it appears to fall under one of my favorite genres: the fantasy that takes place in the "real world" with little to no explanation of why all the crazy things that happen are possible. I'd put Lost in this category. The characters all appear to have video game superpowers. Why? I have no idea, and I hope they don't explain it. Michael Cera is the lead, and though many people are Cera'd out, I'm not (at least not totally). Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the female lead (she played Lucy McClane in the latest Die Hard), and she is attractive and hopefully also a good actress (honestly, I don't remember her that well from Die Hard). The top reason, though, is the fact that JASON FREAKING SCHWARTZMAN is one of the villains. That sounds like it's made of awesome. And if that's not enough, it was directed by Edgar Wright. He directed Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, which were both awesome.

This movie could very well be extremely lame, but based on the research that I've done thus far, it looks like it will not suck. It's coming out on August 13th. Sometime on or after that date, I'll be seeing it.

I tire of the Zen Master

Seriously, that hat looks moronic. Especially since more than half of those titles were won with the Bulls.

Before every series the Lakers have had thus far in the playoffs, Phil Jackson has made some comment apparently designed to influence the referees in the coming series. He's come for Kevin Durant and Steve Nash, and now he's claiming that the whole Celtics team plays dirty or something.
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I think Jackson is a great coach, but this crap gets old really quickly. Considering how bad the referees are already, it could easily lead to bad calls in the finals. I know that this is what he's going for, but I don't really get why he can do it.

Let's take a look at Jackson's opposite number in the Finals, Doc Rivers. In March, he was fined $25 thousand after criticizing the referees in a game against the Bulls. Clearly his comments were made in an attempt to have an effect on the referees' future actions. So why was he fined when, as far as I can tell, Phil Jackson hasn't been fined for any of his ref-baiting?

I have a feeling it's mostly because he's Phil Jackson, but a big part of it also has to be the fact that he's technically not directly criticizing referees. But as I said earlier, Jackson is having an effect on referees - hell, he may be having more of an effect than Rivers' comments ever could. The NBA needs to make up their minds - either you can make comments directed at the referees, or you can't. Either fine everyone or nobody.

And while we're at it, let's fine all the referees too, just for being horrible at their jobs.

Indy 500 awards

Not pictured: Ashley Judd's hat, which won Biggest and Most Awesome Hat (Girl Category).

Last night was the Indianapolis 500 awards banquet. I didn't watch it, going instead with Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals (even though Indianapolis' WTHR tried really hard to get me to watch the banquet). Since I didn't watch it, I'm going to assume nobody actually watched the awards banquet. Never fear, though: I attended the race, and so I am more than qualified to dole out my own awards for the 2010 Indianapolis 500.

And I promise I won't ruin any important hockey games to do it.
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MVP: Dario Franchitti

This is a pretty obvious choice. Sorry, but I'd be an idiot to try to pick someone else. He led 155 out of the 200 laps, and he had leads of up to ten seconds at times over the second place car. He was so dominant that there were times where the sound of his engine would be gone by the time the next car passed.

I'm usually pretty upset when a race ends under yellow, because it deprives the fans of a close finish. That was definitely the case here, because as the race was ending the leaders were all running low on fuel, and in an attempt to conserve, Franchitti was slowing. Dan Wheldon had more than enough to finish, and was coming hard for Franchitti. If the race had finished under a green flag, it's hard to know what would have happened, but it's likely that Wheldon would have had a shot at the lead. But this time, I was actually okay with it. A battle to the finish would have been cool, but Dario Franchitti was so dominant over the course of the race that he deserved to win. Wheldon had been good, but not noticeable. Had he stolen the win, it would have ruined the race to an extent. I'm not really a huge Dario fan, but in that sense I'm glad that he won.

Most outstanding driver: Tony Kanaan

Kanaan had just about the worst month he could possibly have leading up to race day. He wrecked twice in less than 24 hours in the process of trying to qualify for the race, and had to scramble just to make the field. He qualified 31st, but started 33rd due to a car change between qualifications and the race.

Something about the new car (and Kanaan's considerable driving skill, obviously) was right, because he rose quickly. After half a lap, he'd already passed seven cars. After 30 laps, Kanaan was in 16th position. He was able to make it all the way to the second position and maintained that for much of the race, but he was never able to pass Franchitti. Still, though, it was a hell of a display of driving, and it was well-appreciated by the fans: our section on the main straightaway was probably about 75 percent Kanaan fans as he made his charge. He fell short of being the first to win the Indy 500 from the back row, but he was definitely the most impressive person on the track not married to Ashley Judd.

Biggest badass: Graham Rahal

There was a moment relatively early in the race where Rahal was black flagged, meaning that he had to serve a penalty of driving the length of pit lane. As he finished that penalty he was in danger of being lapped by the leader, who was Franchitti (like it was for almost the entire race). He got a blue-yellow flag, which is a signal to a slower driver that a fast car is approaching, and that s/he should get out of the way.

Graham Rahal did not get out of the way. In fact, he was able to hold Franchitti off for an extended period of time, and when the next yellow flag was waved, he got to move to the back of the line, putting him out of danger of falling a lap back. His highest position was fourth in the last quarter of the race.

This is all the more impressive if you know a bit about his story. He's a part of Sarah Fisher's team, which, unfortunately, is not very good. He got a ride with Rahal Letterman Racing (his father Bobby's team) for the 500, but his status for the rest of the IndyCar season was in doubt. In essence, Graham Rahal was driving for his job on Sunday. I don't own an open-wheel race car team, but if I did and I was looking for a driver, Rahal's performance in Indianapolis would make me a lot more interested in giving him a shot.

Best team: Andretti Autosport

Their cars started 16th (Marco Andretti), 17th (Ryan Hunter-Reay), 23rd (Danica Patrick), and 33rd (Kanaan). The team looked like a bit of a mess going into the race, to be perfectly honest. But something happened between Carb Day (the last practice day before the race) and the green flag. The team must have figured something out, because Kanaan and Andretti had two of the best performances of anyone on the track, and Patrick came out of nowhere to finish in the top ten. The team had four drivers in the top nine on lap 191. Circumstances intervened, but Andretti Autosport outperformed the starting grid, and honestly also the final results.

Most disappointing moment: Kanaan's pit stop on lap 196

Tony Kanaan drove a hell of a race, and was in position to have a shot at the win late in the day. If he'd pulled it off, it might have been the best single performance in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But unfortunately, like most of the rest of the race leaders, Kanaan was low on fuel. The last yellow flag had been on lap 161, and it came just after a round of green flag stops. There was a lot of uncertainty concerning how the race would end: would there be a rash of cars just stopping on the track, a la Michael Andretti in 1992?

That did not turn out to be the case, as most of the cars running low on fuel stopped to fill up. But on lap 196, I literally let out a yell of frustration when Kanaan did so, because it effectively shot down any chance he'd had of winning the race. In terms of team strategy, it was the smart thing to do - obviously, a driver gets more points for finishing 11th as Kanaan did than for not finishing at all (a distinct possibility without the pit stop). But to paraphrase Tom Crean, it's Indianapolis. Damn the points and go for the win. People won't remember IZOD IndyCar Series points championships for long, but winning the Borg-Warner Trophy lasts forever.

"I don't want to be a race car driver anymore" moment: Mike Conway and Hunter-Reay wreck on last lap

Watching Dario Franchitti win the race would make any kid want to drive a race car. As we discussed while leaving, any job that can cause a famous actress to sprint barefoot down a scalding asphalt road simply to get to you is a job that's probably worth having. (I'd make that more gender neutral, but Danica Patrick's husband looks like kind of a tool. Prove me wrong, Milka Duno.) However, the wreck between Conway and Hunter-Reay on the last lap was a reminder of how dangerous the sport is. Say what you like about football being a game of violence, but the day Bob Sanders experiences something like this on the field is the day I'll buy his jersey.



Conway is going to be out for at least three months with significant leg and back injuries, including a compression fracture to one of his vertebrae. He's had one surgery already and more will be needed, so hopefully Conway will recover fully.

But yeah, after seeing that, even a Judd won't get me into a race car.

This is awesome: Here there be wolves

So evidently it's all the rage now to think you're one kind of Universal movie monster or another. I'd heard before about people who claim that they are real vampires of one kind or another - evidently some subsist only on blood, while others are "psychic vampires," who drain people's life force with their minds or something like that. And now, I just found out about the San Antonio teen werewolves. They're a bunch of high school kids who wear cat-eye contact lenses (which look nothing like wolf eyes, I might add) and fake tails and sit around outside malls. I'm assuming that this is all somehow related to Twilight, but they keep calling themselves a wolfpack, so there may be other influences as well.

I don't get it, but as long as people don't get hurt, I don't care what they do. It's kind of amusing, but if it makes them happy, then go for it.

At the risk of going full Simmons, though, there's only one thing that comes to mind for me when I hear about teenage werewolves. And it's definitely not that Taylor Lautner dude (who was surprisingly not horrible on SNL last year). It's this, and only this:


I just hope they don't mind if the basketball coach to recruit them. Because that dude could jump.

Contact, growth, etc.

As I believe I've mentioned before, I started a Twitter account for this blog a little while back. Since a little bit of time has passed and people are reading a little more, I thought I'd share that again. Here's the link to the Thus Spoke Keith Hernandez Twitter page.

If you're interested (and who knows whether you are or not), I have a personal account as well. It's a little more...let's say colorful, but nothing that someone over the age of sixteen can't handle. So here's the link for that.

EDIT: By the way, there's now a "Contact" box at the bottom of the page. So there's that.

As time passes, I'm sort of hoping that more and more people will come on board here, and readership will increase. It would be a huge help if the honored few who are a part of this now evangelize a little on its behalf. In short, tell your friends.