I know I haven't posted on here for like a year and a day, but something came up on a blog that I frequent and I felt I couldn't let this go any longer.
There are certain people, people who I can only assume have some sort of issues borne out of a traumatic experience, who want to drive anyone who puts ketchup on a hot dog over a cliff, 1800's buffalo hunter style. These people think ketchup should not only be banned, it should be eliminated from existence. Ketchup is a scourge that's devouring the innocence of our children.
The above linked post, which doesn't really address ketchup in its body, has a number of comments to this effect. This is the second time in several months I have seen this sentiment. Before that, I wasn't aware that there was this much anger towards ketchup. So I decided to do some brief research.
Just performing a google search for "ketchup on hot dogs," I encountered the following things:
"It's simply wrong, and those who put ketchup on hot dogs should be scolded and shamed "
"It is taboo to put ketchup on a Chicago hot dog"
"I hate ketchup on hot dogs. "
"Amazon.com: Never Put Ketchup on a Hot Dog: Bob Schwartz"
Yes, that's right, the last one is an actual book, 208 pages long, about hot dog cuisine. And the title says it all.
To be fair, clicking on a few of those links, you see that a majority (not vast, by any means) actually do put ketchup on their dogs. But it's the vocal minority that is mindboggling to me.
I understand that there are people who don’t LIKE ketchup. Of course those people are out there. That’s fine; we have different tastes in condiments. I dislike mustard. Never got a taste for it. You know what? I’m okay with that. I don’t feel like my life is incomplete without mustard. I’ve tried it and I don’t like it. You do like it? Good for you! I’m glad it makes you happy. We’ll both get our separate condiments at a barbecue and move on, right?
WRONG! Unlike any other condiment, ketchup is actively campaigned against. It’s not enough to dislike ketchup – it is some people’s goals to destroy anyone who does happen to like it. Here’s an actual conversation* overheard at a stadium concession stand:
*may not be actual
Ketchup Eater: How’s it going?
Ketchup Hater: Are you putting ketchup on that hot dog?
KE: Yeah…
KH: You make me sick. All you people. You like punching babies, don’t you?
KE: Ummm, no, I…
KH: Don’t talk to me. You’re the one who ran over my puppy last week, aren’t you? I heard you laugh while you did it.
KE: I don’t even know who you are.
KH: Yeah, well, I know you. Keep your children out of our schools, freak.
And so on. Why? Why is there such a vocal populace out there against ketchup? Is it chemical imbalance? Repressed bigotry that’s trying to assert itself in a way that’s more politically correct? I don’t know, but it bothers me. I felt it was my duty to speak out against it.
We’re people too! Our love of ketchup doesn’t make us bad! It’s just something we like! Let it go!
For posterity, the perfect condiments for my ideal hot dog include the following:
Strip of ketchup along one side
Hot Sauce (preferably Tapatio or Cholula) along the other side
Onions (I prefer grilled white on my dog, but any type of onions will do, even green onions)
Jalapenos
Grilled Peppers (optional – sometimes I’m in the mood, sometimes not)
You get me a nice grilled frank with that on it and I am one happy guy.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
What to do about college football?
I love college football. It's SO much better than the NFL. Yes, I realize that the play in the NFL is at a higher level and all that. I also realize that there is a lot wrong with the way the NCAA handles things, especially the favoritism to some schools and draconian regulations regarding compensation for athletes.
But I enjoy the games so much more. Maybe it's because the players haven't "made it" yet, so there's a little bit less attitude and a little bit more effort. Maybe the idea of schools competing against each other is a little bit more appealing than faceless NFL franchises. Maybe it's the sense that in college football there are true underdogs and amazing performances, whereas in the NFL, nothing should really surprise you. My guess is that it's a combination of all these things, among others.
I had a great time watching my alma mater, Oregon, win a close game against Oklahoma St. in the Holiday Bowl this year. It was a fun and exciting game, more so because Oregon was the underdog and was somewhat disrespected because they came from the Pac 10, which was criticized for having a down year. This was kind of a rebuilding season for the Ducks, so to do as well as they did was a very pleasant surprise. As a result of the Ducks' success, I've been devouring all things college football lately and I felt it was time to weigh in on the current BCS/Playoff debate.
College football needs a playoff. It's that simple. I watched USC pound a Big 10 school for the 24th time in a row on New Year's Day and lamented that they wouldn't have a chance to play for a title. I saw Utah go undefeated by beating a top tier SEC program and realized that Utah, strictly in terms of wins and losses, played perfectly and never had a chance at a championship. Texas, because of the rules of its own conference, doesn't have a chance to show it's the national champion. None of these things seem right to me. And it's not like this is reactionary - there has been crazy stuff going on with the BCS since it came into being. Some years have been more clearcut than others (Texas vs. USC a few years ago comes to mind), but there are always problems.
So how would it work? There are lots of ideas floating around out there, so I'm not going to claim this as original, but I didn't steal it from anyone in particular. This is just my logical conclusion from knowing how college football works.
First of all, my playoff would NOT eliminate other bowl games. Any team with a winning record would still be eligible for the GMAC Bowl and the Chick-a-dee Bowl and the SolutionsForRectalBleeding.Com Bowl, etc. Whatever teams don't make into the playoff bracket would still play in those other bowls. I don't buy the argument that a playoff would diminish the luster of those other bowls. As it stands right now, who the crap cares about the Emerald Bowl? The two teams playing in it, their fans, and die-hard college football fans who root for Stanford and therefore don't have a bowl game to watch anyway. So other teams can continue doing their thing at their other bowls. It gets the schools and the conferences money, it's fun for fans, it helps with recruiting... Why mess with the one part of this system that isn't broken?
Second of all, get rid of conference championship games. They are stupid. There's nothing wrong with conferences trying to make money, but these are ridiculous cash grabs that wind up hurting their schools (in terms of BCS placement) rather than helping them (see Alabama and Ball St.). Ideally, all conferences would be like the Pac 10 (bias alert!) where each team plays each other team (and yes, I realize that this wasn't the case in the Pac 10 until just recently). How can there be a dispute about who the best team is when each team has had a chance to beat the others? Yes, occasionally you'll wind up with a situation like in the Big 12 where Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma all end the season tied. In that case, you can use tie-breakers like the Pac 10 uses (record versus the next best team in the conference) or you can use the point spread in the games versus the teams you're tied with. No, this does NOT encourage running up the score because you are only looking at point spread against other teams that are supposedly good (these teams being tied for first place and all).
Unless some serious realignment takes place (which wouldn't be a bad thing, IMO - put Iowa St in the Big 10, move Baylor or Colorado into the MWC, and make a new conference out of Penn St., Purdue, two schools from the ACC (BC and Wake Forest?), two schools from the SEC (Kentucky and Vanderbilt?), and two other schools from small conferences (Ball St. and East Carolina?) to make a new conference. In fact, I'd go so far as to make 12 conferences of 10 teams each (or 10 conferences of 10, 2 conferences of 8 and 4 independents, if Notre Dame wants to be stupid about it - yes, this would mean adding one FCS school to the FBS). This is sheer insanity, I know, but I dare you to make a legitimate argument as to why it makes sense that the schools in each conference don't play all the other schools in that conference), then this isn't going to happen. But no more conf. champ games, period. Schedule one more in-conference or out-of-conference game and be done with it.
Give teams a choice to start their season on the last weekend in August and have two bye weeks, or start on the first weekend in September and have one bye week. This ensures that every team is done by the last weekend in November, since there are 14 weekends in this span and each team plays 12 games.
Here's where my plan deviates. If we're going to do the 12 conference realignment thing (highly unlikely), then I propose you take each of the 12 conference winners plus 4 at-large teams and make a 16 team tournament with the first round played the first weekend in December. The conference champions would ONLY be eligible to make the tournament if they were ranked in the top 25 in the final BCS standings. This would keep a mediocre conference champion who went 6 - 3 in a weak conference from making the tournament (Troy or East Carolina, for example). If there were conference champions who didn't qualify, the next two top-ranked at-large teams would make the tourney.
This would be a seeded tournament based on final BCS rank. The #1 seed would play #16, #2 vs. #15, etc., even if those seedings create in-conference matchups (the rationale being, if you were good enough to beat them the first time, you should be good enough to beat them again, so why mess with the rankings unnecessarily?). The location for the games could be determined either by playing the game at the home stadium of the team with the higher seed, or at pre-determined neutral sites. Again there's a choice here: you could assign stadiums to each matchup (e.g. the Rose Bowl would host the #3 vs. #14 matchup no matter who those teams are), or you could pick 8 stadiums and allow the top-seeded teams, beginning with the #1 seed, to pick their preferred site. So if #1 was USC, they could pick the Rose Bowl as the site of their game, while the #2 seed, Florida, could pick the Orange Bowl, etc. I think the last option is the most interesting, and would make the most sense from a home-team advantage, logistical, and money-making standpoint, the latter two of which don't necessarily matter to me, but do matter to the people who make decisions about these things.
Since the realignment thing probably will never happen, here's the other option: a twelve team tournament similar to the NFL's playoffs. In this case, you take the 6 major conference champions (as long as those champions were ranked in the top 18 of the final BCS standings), and then 6 at-larges. Again, you seed the 12 teams based on the BCS standings, regardless of whether or not those teams were conference champs. The top 4 teams get a bye and the remaining 8 play the first round the first weekend of December. The bracket this year would have looked like this:
#1 Oklahoma
vs
Bye
#8 Penn St.
vs.
#9 Boise St.
#5 USC
vs
#12 Cincinnati
#4 Alabama
vs
Bye
#3 Texas
vs
Bye
#6 Utah
vs
#11 TCU
#7 Texas Tech
vs
#10 Ohio St.
#2 Florida
vs
Bye
In this scenario, Virginia Tech loses its automatic bid to TCU because it ended up 19th in the final standings, so we wind up with a bracket that uses the top 12 teams in the country. "But wait!" you may say, "How do we know we really wind up with the best twelve teams?" We may not, but we can be fairly certain that we're going to wind up with the best 8 and probably 12 of the best 16 or 18. That's pretty dang good.
"And why does TCU get to go but Oklahoma St. doesn't? Aren't we still making arbitrary cutoff points?" Well, the beauty of a playoff is that we're just giving teams a legitimate chance to play for the national championship. We're expanding the pool from the two it's currently at to 12 or 16. If you can't establish yourself as at least a top 16 team, then I'm sorry, but you don't deserve the chance to play for the championship. You have to make the cutoff somewhere, and 12 or 16 seems like a good enough point. That would still be only 10 or 13% of the 119 FBS teams that make the playoffs. Compare that to the NFL (38%), MLB (27%), or the NHL (53%) and you're still keeping the regular season VERY meaningful while giving teams like Utah, Boise St., or even Texas and USC this year a chance to play for the title rather than just having to gripe about not getting an opportunity because of a flawed ranking system.
To continue on with my proposed playoff system, after the first round you would be down to 8 teams, regardless of whether or not you started with 12 or 16. (Also note that teams that lose in the first round would be allowed to accept berths to other bowl games) You would move two of the minor bowls up to the major bowl echelon (maybe the Cotton Bowl and the Capital One Bowl or Holiday Bowl) so you have your six bowls (adding the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta). You rotate these six between the quarterfinals and semifinals each year and play the national championship game at one of the quarterfinal bowls. You would play the quarters the week of Christmas, the semifinals on New Year's Day, and the Championship on the 8th, as it's done now.
There is one glaring flaw with this plan - it's a LOT of games. Say you're Utah this year. You would play TCU on December 6th - a team you already beat. Let's say you beat them again, this time at a neutral site. Now you know you're going to play Texas at the Cotton Bowl on December 26th. That's not too bad, you can probably get fans to travel for that game since they have several weeks to book reservations and make plans. Let's say you beat Texas. Now you're going to play Florida at the Sugar Bowl in less than a week. How many fans do you think will go to that game? Maybe some fans will have held out in case that happened, but probably not many. And the number will be even less if you beat Florida and go to Orange Bowl for the National Championship the week after that! Not to mention that it will be the 16th game these guys have played this season. That would be hard.
I could see changing it to an 8 team tournament and bumping everything up (playing the quarters on Dec 5th, the semis on Jan 1st, and the NCG on the 8th and again allowing the teams that lost in the quarters to accept bids to other bowls), but I think limiting it to 8 still runs the risk of leaving out teams like Boise St. (9th in the final BCS) who play in a weak conference. It's not easy to schedule 2 or 3 tough out of conference games every season and it's not really Boise St.'s fault it plays in a crappy conference. Sometimes, even when you do schedule tough games, the schedule just works out poorly. If Boise St. had beat Oregon on the road at the end of the season rather than at the beginning, would they have played Alabama in the Sugar Bowl instead of Utah? Increasing the tournament to 12 would eliminate these unfair omissions while still keeping the regular season meaningful (only two 2-loss teams would have made the tournament this year).
College football is a great sport the way it is, but it's a travesty the way the champion is decided. It needs to change. I understand that adding more games makes it tough to keep a college atmosphere - one of the best things about college athletics is that you get droves of rabid fans from crazy places (how many people in Eugene, OR care passionately about an NFL team? I don't know but it's a tiny fraction of the number that care passionately about the Ducks). There's nothing like attending a college football game. Adding these extra games would definitely decrease some of that atmosphere. That doesn't matter much to me, since I can't afford to go to the one bowl game a year the Ducks make it to anyway. I'd love this system because I could watch it all on TV. But I know that these things matter to some people and they would create problems.
The question is whether or not having an actual national champion and adding several more exciting college football matchups is worth the price of those problems. In my opinion, it is.
But I enjoy the games so much more. Maybe it's because the players haven't "made it" yet, so there's a little bit less attitude and a little bit more effort. Maybe the idea of schools competing against each other is a little bit more appealing than faceless NFL franchises. Maybe it's the sense that in college football there are true underdogs and amazing performances, whereas in the NFL, nothing should really surprise you. My guess is that it's a combination of all these things, among others.
I had a great time watching my alma mater, Oregon, win a close game against Oklahoma St. in the Holiday Bowl this year. It was a fun and exciting game, more so because Oregon was the underdog and was somewhat disrespected because they came from the Pac 10, which was criticized for having a down year. This was kind of a rebuilding season for the Ducks, so to do as well as they did was a very pleasant surprise. As a result of the Ducks' success, I've been devouring all things college football lately and I felt it was time to weigh in on the current BCS/Playoff debate.
College football needs a playoff. It's that simple. I watched USC pound a Big 10 school for the 24th time in a row on New Year's Day and lamented that they wouldn't have a chance to play for a title. I saw Utah go undefeated by beating a top tier SEC program and realized that Utah, strictly in terms of wins and losses, played perfectly and never had a chance at a championship. Texas, because of the rules of its own conference, doesn't have a chance to show it's the national champion. None of these things seem right to me. And it's not like this is reactionary - there has been crazy stuff going on with the BCS since it came into being. Some years have been more clearcut than others (Texas vs. USC a few years ago comes to mind), but there are always problems.
So how would it work? There are lots of ideas floating around out there, so I'm not going to claim this as original, but I didn't steal it from anyone in particular. This is just my logical conclusion from knowing how college football works.
First of all, my playoff would NOT eliminate other bowl games. Any team with a winning record would still be eligible for the GMAC Bowl and the Chick-a-dee Bowl and the SolutionsForRectalBleeding.Com Bowl, etc. Whatever teams don't make into the playoff bracket would still play in those other bowls. I don't buy the argument that a playoff would diminish the luster of those other bowls. As it stands right now, who the crap cares about the Emerald Bowl? The two teams playing in it, their fans, and die-hard college football fans who root for Stanford and therefore don't have a bowl game to watch anyway. So other teams can continue doing their thing at their other bowls. It gets the schools and the conferences money, it's fun for fans, it helps with recruiting... Why mess with the one part of this system that isn't broken?
Second of all, get rid of conference championship games. They are stupid. There's nothing wrong with conferences trying to make money, but these are ridiculous cash grabs that wind up hurting their schools (in terms of BCS placement) rather than helping them (see Alabama and Ball St.). Ideally, all conferences would be like the Pac 10 (bias alert!) where each team plays each other team (and yes, I realize that this wasn't the case in the Pac 10 until just recently). How can there be a dispute about who the best team is when each team has had a chance to beat the others? Yes, occasionally you'll wind up with a situation like in the Big 12 where Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma all end the season tied. In that case, you can use tie-breakers like the Pac 10 uses (record versus the next best team in the conference) or you can use the point spread in the games versus the teams you're tied with. No, this does NOT encourage running up the score because you are only looking at point spread against other teams that are supposedly good (these teams being tied for first place and all).
Unless some serious realignment takes place (which wouldn't be a bad thing, IMO - put Iowa St in the Big 10, move Baylor or Colorado into the MWC, and make a new conference out of Penn St., Purdue, two schools from the ACC (BC and Wake Forest?), two schools from the SEC (Kentucky and Vanderbilt?), and two other schools from small conferences (Ball St. and East Carolina?) to make a new conference. In fact, I'd go so far as to make 12 conferences of 10 teams each (or 10 conferences of 10, 2 conferences of 8 and 4 independents, if Notre Dame wants to be stupid about it - yes, this would mean adding one FCS school to the FBS). This is sheer insanity, I know, but I dare you to make a legitimate argument as to why it makes sense that the schools in each conference don't play all the other schools in that conference), then this isn't going to happen. But no more conf. champ games, period. Schedule one more in-conference or out-of-conference game and be done with it.
Give teams a choice to start their season on the last weekend in August and have two bye weeks, or start on the first weekend in September and have one bye week. This ensures that every team is done by the last weekend in November, since there are 14 weekends in this span and each team plays 12 games.
Here's where my plan deviates. If we're going to do the 12 conference realignment thing (highly unlikely), then I propose you take each of the 12 conference winners plus 4 at-large teams and make a 16 team tournament with the first round played the first weekend in December. The conference champions would ONLY be eligible to make the tournament if they were ranked in the top 25 in the final BCS standings. This would keep a mediocre conference champion who went 6 - 3 in a weak conference from making the tournament (Troy or East Carolina, for example). If there were conference champions who didn't qualify, the next two top-ranked at-large teams would make the tourney.
This would be a seeded tournament based on final BCS rank. The #1 seed would play #16, #2 vs. #15, etc., even if those seedings create in-conference matchups (the rationale being, if you were good enough to beat them the first time, you should be good enough to beat them again, so why mess with the rankings unnecessarily?). The location for the games could be determined either by playing the game at the home stadium of the team with the higher seed, or at pre-determined neutral sites. Again there's a choice here: you could assign stadiums to each matchup (e.g. the Rose Bowl would host the #3 vs. #14 matchup no matter who those teams are), or you could pick 8 stadiums and allow the top-seeded teams, beginning with the #1 seed, to pick their preferred site. So if #1 was USC, they could pick the Rose Bowl as the site of their game, while the #2 seed, Florida, could pick the Orange Bowl, etc. I think the last option is the most interesting, and would make the most sense from a home-team advantage, logistical, and money-making standpoint, the latter two of which don't necessarily matter to me, but do matter to the people who make decisions about these things.
Since the realignment thing probably will never happen, here's the other option: a twelve team tournament similar to the NFL's playoffs. In this case, you take the 6 major conference champions (as long as those champions were ranked in the top 18 of the final BCS standings), and then 6 at-larges. Again, you seed the 12 teams based on the BCS standings, regardless of whether or not those teams were conference champs. The top 4 teams get a bye and the remaining 8 play the first round the first weekend of December. The bracket this year would have looked like this:
#1 Oklahoma
vs
Bye
#8 Penn St.
vs.
#9 Boise St.
#5 USC
vs
#12 Cincinnati
#4 Alabama
vs
Bye
#3 Texas
vs
Bye
#6 Utah
vs
#11 TCU
#7 Texas Tech
vs
#10 Ohio St.
#2 Florida
vs
Bye
In this scenario, Virginia Tech loses its automatic bid to TCU because it ended up 19th in the final standings, so we wind up with a bracket that uses the top 12 teams in the country. "But wait!" you may say, "How do we know we really wind up with the best twelve teams?" We may not, but we can be fairly certain that we're going to wind up with the best 8 and probably 12 of the best 16 or 18. That's pretty dang good.
"And why does TCU get to go but Oklahoma St. doesn't? Aren't we still making arbitrary cutoff points?" Well, the beauty of a playoff is that we're just giving teams a legitimate chance to play for the national championship. We're expanding the pool from the two it's currently at to 12 or 16. If you can't establish yourself as at least a top 16 team, then I'm sorry, but you don't deserve the chance to play for the championship. You have to make the cutoff somewhere, and 12 or 16 seems like a good enough point. That would still be only 10 or 13% of the 119 FBS teams that make the playoffs. Compare that to the NFL (38%), MLB (27%), or the NHL (53%) and you're still keeping the regular season VERY meaningful while giving teams like Utah, Boise St., or even Texas and USC this year a chance to play for the title rather than just having to gripe about not getting an opportunity because of a flawed ranking system.
To continue on with my proposed playoff system, after the first round you would be down to 8 teams, regardless of whether or not you started with 12 or 16. (Also note that teams that lose in the first round would be allowed to accept berths to other bowl games) You would move two of the minor bowls up to the major bowl echelon (maybe the Cotton Bowl and the Capital One Bowl or Holiday Bowl) so you have your six bowls (adding the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta). You rotate these six between the quarterfinals and semifinals each year and play the national championship game at one of the quarterfinal bowls. You would play the quarters the week of Christmas, the semifinals on New Year's Day, and the Championship on the 8th, as it's done now.
There is one glaring flaw with this plan - it's a LOT of games. Say you're Utah this year. You would play TCU on December 6th - a team you already beat. Let's say you beat them again, this time at a neutral site. Now you know you're going to play Texas at the Cotton Bowl on December 26th. That's not too bad, you can probably get fans to travel for that game since they have several weeks to book reservations and make plans. Let's say you beat Texas. Now you're going to play Florida at the Sugar Bowl in less than a week. How many fans do you think will go to that game? Maybe some fans will have held out in case that happened, but probably not many. And the number will be even less if you beat Florida and go to Orange Bowl for the National Championship the week after that! Not to mention that it will be the 16th game these guys have played this season. That would be hard.
I could see changing it to an 8 team tournament and bumping everything up (playing the quarters on Dec 5th, the semis on Jan 1st, and the NCG on the 8th and again allowing the teams that lost in the quarters to accept bids to other bowls), but I think limiting it to 8 still runs the risk of leaving out teams like Boise St. (9th in the final BCS) who play in a weak conference. It's not easy to schedule 2 or 3 tough out of conference games every season and it's not really Boise St.'s fault it plays in a crappy conference. Sometimes, even when you do schedule tough games, the schedule just works out poorly. If Boise St. had beat Oregon on the road at the end of the season rather than at the beginning, would they have played Alabama in the Sugar Bowl instead of Utah? Increasing the tournament to 12 would eliminate these unfair omissions while still keeping the regular season meaningful (only two 2-loss teams would have made the tournament this year).
College football is a great sport the way it is, but it's a travesty the way the champion is decided. It needs to change. I understand that adding more games makes it tough to keep a college atmosphere - one of the best things about college athletics is that you get droves of rabid fans from crazy places (how many people in Eugene, OR care passionately about an NFL team? I don't know but it's a tiny fraction of the number that care passionately about the Ducks). There's nothing like attending a college football game. Adding these extra games would definitely decrease some of that atmosphere. That doesn't matter much to me, since I can't afford to go to the one bowl game a year the Ducks make it to anyway. I'd love this system because I could watch it all on TV. But I know that these things matter to some people and they would create problems.
The question is whether or not having an actual national champion and adding several more exciting college football matchups is worth the price of those problems. In my opinion, it is.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Winter Meetings
This offseason is starting to get rather excruciating. I have a feeling most Angels fans are sharing in this. These winter meetings held so many opportunities:
Teixeira? No, he's still TECHNICALLY up for grabs, but it's looking like the Angels will have to make a much better offer than any other team since it looks like he'd be willing to take a tad less to get him to come to the West Coast. That's a bad sign since the rumors have Boston and Washington both offering him a gajillion dollars for 39 years or something like that. So all the rumors have him not staying in Anaheim when he's the EXACT guy the Angels need. Blargh.
Sabathia? Not really someone the Angels needed, but would have looked nice in their rotation. Well, the good ol' Yankees shot that hope down pretty quick.
Peavy? Apparently the Padres are asking for the best 5 players on your team, plus a sacrifice of the GM's firstborn child just to begin talking. So that's not happening.
Raul Ibanez? Yes please! Let's pursue an aging, slow, bad fielding, declining left fielder looking for a multi-year, $10 million + per year contract. Wait...didn't we have one of those? Wasn't his name Garret Anderson? Didn't we love him? Yes, yes we did. This is idiotic, people. It's true that Ibanez has aged better than Anderson, putting up better OPS's in a tougher park, but then again, who cares about Ibanez? He probably won't outhit Garret by all that much, nor does he carry the added bonus of being the Angels all-time leader in like 29 different categories. WAIT! He's going for 200 career homeruns next year! Uhh, GA's going for 300. WAIT! He's going for 1500 career hits next year! Uhh, GA's going for 2500. Yes, I will begrudgingly admit that he'd be an upgrade over GA, but I contend that when everything gets factored in (defense, baserunning, etc.), it won't be that much of an upgrade. And I love GA. Yeah, it's safe to say that this is idiotic. (EDIT: Ibanez signed today with the Phillies, so thankfully this is not going to happen any more. Dodged a bullet there.)
Manny? Well, as much as I loathe Manny, he's a damn good hitter and would look nice (in hitting terms, not in actual physical appearance) hitting behind Vlad. But the Angels have pretty much said they're not interested. Neither bad nor good I suppose, but that's one less good hitter on the market that the Angels could possibly obtain.
Meanwhile, back at Billy Beane's evil laboratory, the A's have gotten better. They added Holliday and are still working on adding Furcal, although Furcal already rejected one offer from them. Their young guys will probably be better, and even though their pitching staff is a crapload of no-names, Oakland has a way of making those no-names into serviceable pitchers.
Oh, and Texas will probably be better, too. Their pitching can't get worse and they have a lot of young guys coming up who are potentially very good. That's trouble.
Alright alright, I hear you. It's the Christmas season. Let's be jolly and have some good news. Ok here it is:
- The door's not technically closed on Teix. We could still get him.
- There are some decent hitters still out there, although all are terribly flawed in other ways - Adam Dunn (lots of homers, lots of K's and ZERO defense), Milton Bradley (a more talented, more psycho version of Jose Guillen), Pat Burrell (see Adam Dunn but with less homers)
- Our young guys could take significant steps forward next year - Wood, Aybar, Kendrick, Morales, etc.
- Our rotation is still very good and the bullpen should be pretty solid as well, even without K-Rod.
- Whatever else happens, we should be looking at a TON of draft opportunities next year, which will help restock our depleted farm system.
I hope all this turns out okay, but I have to tell you, I'm worried. Arte, if you want to get me a great Christmas present (and I know you do), hand Teixeira a blank check and get it done.
Teixeira? No, he's still TECHNICALLY up for grabs, but it's looking like the Angels will have to make a much better offer than any other team since it looks like he'd be willing to take a tad less to get him to come to the West Coast. That's a bad sign since the rumors have Boston and Washington both offering him a gajillion dollars for 39 years or something like that. So all the rumors have him not staying in Anaheim when he's the EXACT guy the Angels need. Blargh.
Sabathia? Not really someone the Angels needed, but would have looked nice in their rotation. Well, the good ol' Yankees shot that hope down pretty quick.
Peavy? Apparently the Padres are asking for the best 5 players on your team, plus a sacrifice of the GM's firstborn child just to begin talking. So that's not happening.
Raul Ibanez? Yes please! Let's pursue an aging, slow, bad fielding, declining left fielder looking for a multi-year, $10 million + per year contract. Wait...didn't we have one of those? Wasn't his name Garret Anderson? Didn't we love him? Yes, yes we did. This is idiotic, people. It's true that Ibanez has aged better than Anderson, putting up better OPS's in a tougher park, but then again, who cares about Ibanez? He probably won't outhit Garret by all that much, nor does he carry the added bonus of being the Angels all-time leader in like 29 different categories. WAIT! He's going for 200 career homeruns next year! Uhh, GA's going for 300. WAIT! He's going for 1500 career hits next year! Uhh, GA's going for 2500. Yes, I will begrudgingly admit that he'd be an upgrade over GA, but I contend that when everything gets factored in (defense, baserunning, etc.), it won't be that much of an upgrade. And I love GA. Yeah, it's safe to say that this is idiotic. (EDIT: Ibanez signed today with the Phillies, so thankfully this is not going to happen any more. Dodged a bullet there.)
Manny? Well, as much as I loathe Manny, he's a damn good hitter and would look nice (in hitting terms, not in actual physical appearance) hitting behind Vlad. But the Angels have pretty much said they're not interested. Neither bad nor good I suppose, but that's one less good hitter on the market that the Angels could possibly obtain.
Meanwhile, back at Billy Beane's evil laboratory, the A's have gotten better. They added Holliday and are still working on adding Furcal, although Furcal already rejected one offer from them. Their young guys will probably be better, and even though their pitching staff is a crapload of no-names, Oakland has a way of making those no-names into serviceable pitchers.
Oh, and Texas will probably be better, too. Their pitching can't get worse and they have a lot of young guys coming up who are potentially very good. That's trouble.
Alright alright, I hear you. It's the Christmas season. Let's be jolly and have some good news. Ok here it is:
- The door's not technically closed on Teix. We could still get him.
- There are some decent hitters still out there, although all are terribly flawed in other ways - Adam Dunn (lots of homers, lots of K's and ZERO defense), Milton Bradley (a more talented, more psycho version of Jose Guillen), Pat Burrell (see Adam Dunn but with less homers)
- Our young guys could take significant steps forward next year - Wood, Aybar, Kendrick, Morales, etc.
- Our rotation is still very good and the bullpen should be pretty solid as well, even without K-Rod.
- Whatever else happens, we should be looking at a TON of draft opportunities next year, which will help restock our depleted farm system.
I hope all this turns out okay, but I have to tell you, I'm worried. Arte, if you want to get me a great Christmas present (and I know you do), hand Teixeira a blank check and get it done.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The hits just keep on comin'...
Updates on some Angels news trickling in. Some okay. Some downright bad. Some discouraging.
Within Rob Neyer's blog there's some info about the Angels, which I've been hearing elsewhere. The Angels are trying to sign CC Sabathia. I knew this was a possibility, but my general thought was that of all the things the Angels could spend money on this offseason, starting pitching was probably the least urgent. They have a bonafide number 1 starter in his prime in John Lackey. They have someone with number 1 stuff and who could develop into a bonafide number 1 in Ervin Santana. Joe Saunders will probably regress somewhat, but he's still solid. Jered Weaver is also solid. The Angels will have a starting spot to fill, but it's the number 5 spot, and it could be temporarily filled by Moseley, Loux, or Adenhart until Escobar is ready in midseason (which is no guarantee). I will have nothing to complain about if CC joins the rotation - he's legitimately one of the 5 best pitchers in baseball right now. According to Neyer he'd probably be worth 3 or 4 wins over Garland (who he'd be replacing). But I feel that money would be better spent elsewhere, which brings me to the disappointing news.
It seems the Angels are "frustrated" with negotiating with Teixeira. There is some rumor that Teix has some knee issues, which has made the Angels balk at giving him anything longer than a 6 year deal. I don't know about knee issues, but I know Teixeira has been very healthy the last few seasons and he's a beast at the plate - exactly what the Angels need. I know it's blasphemy, but Vlad is NOT the hitter he was when the Angels first signed him. He's declining. He may not hit 30 HR's again. And Vlad has shown he's the type of guy who tries too hard when he feels he has to carry the team offensively. The Angels can't let that happen, and Teixeira's the guy best equipped to make sure it doesn't happen. Until the fat lady sings, I'll believe the Angels are players in Teixeira Watch 2008-2009, but my hopes are somewhat diminished.
Lastly, the downright bad news. I reported before that Garret Anderson had been cut loose by the Angels, who did have some hope of re-signing him to a lesser deal. I also heard that he had cut ties with his agent, which made me hopeful that he would negotiate with the Angels himself. Then it came out that he was excited about testing the free agent market, which was discouraging, but not the end of the world. And now I hear this: He's signed with Scott Boras. Anderson is now represented by Satan's minion. I guess this happened about a week ago, but I must have missed it. This is awful. Not only does this virtually eliminate any possibility of a hometown discount, it also pains me to see a player I've rooted for for 14 years turn to the Axis of Evil. Ugh.
As depressing as that information is, I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family, I have a stable job, a good home, and many other blessings. So I'm excited for tomorrow and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Within Rob Neyer's blog there's some info about the Angels, which I've been hearing elsewhere. The Angels are trying to sign CC Sabathia. I knew this was a possibility, but my general thought was that of all the things the Angels could spend money on this offseason, starting pitching was probably the least urgent. They have a bonafide number 1 starter in his prime in John Lackey. They have someone with number 1 stuff and who could develop into a bonafide number 1 in Ervin Santana. Joe Saunders will probably regress somewhat, but he's still solid. Jered Weaver is also solid. The Angels will have a starting spot to fill, but it's the number 5 spot, and it could be temporarily filled by Moseley, Loux, or Adenhart until Escobar is ready in midseason (which is no guarantee). I will have nothing to complain about if CC joins the rotation - he's legitimately one of the 5 best pitchers in baseball right now. According to Neyer he'd probably be worth 3 or 4 wins over Garland (who he'd be replacing). But I feel that money would be better spent elsewhere, which brings me to the disappointing news.
It seems the Angels are "frustrated" with negotiating with Teixeira. There is some rumor that Teix has some knee issues, which has made the Angels balk at giving him anything longer than a 6 year deal. I don't know about knee issues, but I know Teixeira has been very healthy the last few seasons and he's a beast at the plate - exactly what the Angels need. I know it's blasphemy, but Vlad is NOT the hitter he was when the Angels first signed him. He's declining. He may not hit 30 HR's again. And Vlad has shown he's the type of guy who tries too hard when he feels he has to carry the team offensively. The Angels can't let that happen, and Teixeira's the guy best equipped to make sure it doesn't happen. Until the fat lady sings, I'll believe the Angels are players in Teixeira Watch 2008-2009, but my hopes are somewhat diminished.
Lastly, the downright bad news. I reported before that Garret Anderson had been cut loose by the Angels, who did have some hope of re-signing him to a lesser deal. I also heard that he had cut ties with his agent, which made me hopeful that he would negotiate with the Angels himself. Then it came out that he was excited about testing the free agent market, which was discouraging, but not the end of the world. And now I hear this: He's signed with Scott Boras. Anderson is now represented by Satan's minion. I guess this happened about a week ago, but I must have missed it. This is awful. Not only does this virtually eliminate any possibility of a hometown discount, it also pains me to see a player I've rooted for for 14 years turn to the Axis of Evil. Ugh.
As depressing as that information is, I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family, I have a stable job, a good home, and many other blessings. So I'm excited for tomorrow and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Reading List
I've been a fairly big fan of Keith Law's for awhile. He's a baseball writer over at ESPN.com. I think I enjoy him because of his style - he's very modern in his baseball analysis, although he does tip his cap to some traditional stuff every once in awhile, and he is extremely sarcastic, which of course agrees with me. Aside from baseball, he enjoys cooking (which is something I think I would enjoy if I had time - in 20 years when my wife and I kick the kids out of the house, I fully intend to explore the realms of the culinary arts) and he enjoys literature.
As evidenced by the title of the blog, I'm a huge sci-fi/fantasy reader. Tolkein is obviously my favorite, but I've enjoyed Terry Brooks, David Eddings, Orson Scott Card, Stephen King's Dark Tower series(which was good until the 6th book at which point it just became weird), and some various others. Most of the true literature I read was in high school and college, where it was more of a chore than anything else. Looking back on it, I realized I read some very good books and didn't get a chance to appreciate them. As it stands, I've exhausted my current supply of sci-fi novels (and baseball books) and I'm dying for something new to read, preferably good books in some areas I may have shied away from in the past because of my experience with "school books."
So knowing Law is a fan of literature and enjoying his baseball writing, I looked up his list of 100 books which can be found on his blog (the link is to number 81 - 100 on his list, you can get to the rest from that point), and decided I would read all of them, starting at #100. There are a few reasons (other than those already mentioned) why I picked his list over some other lists, such as the Time 100 or Novel 100:
- He hated Moby Dick, which is probably second on my list of least favorite books of all time (right behind The Scarlet Letter). He describes it as a 500-page encyclopedia entry on whaling, which is about right. Except the encyclopedia entry might actually be informative.
- Somewhat related to the first point, his list is based on personal enjoyment and doesn't over-rate scholarly consensus. Books like Moby Dick make it onto top 100 lists because people who have degrees from Ivy League schools and talk with British accents think that they should. Those lists often contain enjoyable books, but they also often contain "respected" books that have been historically labeled as "literature" and so any list excluding them is invalid. I disagree wholeheartedly, and it seems Law does as well.
- He also dislikes most Dickens, which appeals to me, since I really couldn't stand Great Expectations (probably in the top 5 of my least favorite books).
- I have read exactly 14 of the books on his list, and liked all but one of them (I'll list them below). This is an important point since all but three of these books were read as homework of some kind, so I was pre-disposed to not liking them.
- The list contains a wide variety of genres (which isn't necessarily exclusive to his list), and one of the main reasons I'm undertaking this project is because I want to expand my reading horizons.
- He lists a number of books from other cultures, which is especially appealing, since that is an area I have largely ignored, other than the African American literature class I took in college, which I really enjoyed.
Some things I have reservations about:
- He lists a number of Jane Austen and Bronte sisters books, which worries me. Then again, I've never read through a whole book of theirs (I believe I started Wuthering Heights but never got very far), so maybe I'm mislabeling those books as "chick books" and I just need to get over myself. Still, I'm worried.
- Law has a degree from Harvard himself, so when he said in a different blog posting that he generally dislikes books where the prose is too thick to enjoy the story (I'm paraphrasing), his version of "thick prose" may be different from mine. We'll see.
- He lists The Lord of the Rings at number 41. Any list of great books that doesn't have this on there is automatically out for me, so at least it's there. But 41? Seems a little low.
Regardless of those concerns, I'm really excited about this. It's been awhile since I read true literature, and I'm starving for new books to read, so this should be fun. I'm not doing this to say I did it (well, not really, but I probably won't hesitate to tell people that I did), and I'm certainly not going to take a scholarly, how-can-I-dissect-the-literary-techniques approach to reading these novels. I expect to learn some things on the way, but that's not the ultimate goal. Really I just want to some good books to read.
Here are the entries on his list that I've already read (but will read again) and a few comments about some of them.
98. The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton: I did a book report on this one my junior year of high school and remember enjoying the story, even though it was a bit strange. I later found out that the author wrote a number of allegorically Christian novels, of which this contains some elements, so I may have to check out more by Chesterton.
96. A Room with a View by EM Forster: This was the only book on the list I truly didn't like. I thought it was boring as heck, but I remember it being fairly short, so I'll give it another try.
87. Native Son by Richard Wright: This was one of the books I read as part of my African American lit class and I thought it was very well written.
83. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain: It's been a LONG time since I read this one, but I remember it being fun.
69. Watership Down by Richard Adams: One of the three books I read outside of school. I liked this book - I thought the characters were interesting, even though they were rabbits.
68. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
67. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: I thought this was a great book when I first read it in high school and I'm looking forward to picking it up again.
57. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson: Been a long time since I read this one as well. Another one read outside of school.
53. 1984 by George Orwell: Maybe the worst ending (in terms of emotion, not in quality) of any book I've read. I was so mad at the ultimate conclusion, which was the whole point, I think.
44. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: This is one of those high school books I read that I fully expected to dislike and wound up liking quite a bit. The characters are very well written.
41. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein: Any excuse to read this one again is fine by me. This is the third book of the ones I read outside of school.
36. My Antonia by Willa Cather
17. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald: Same kind of deal as Things Fall Apart. It will be interesting to read this outside of a scholarly setting.
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: I remember liking this book, but always thinking it was a tad over-rated. I'll give it another shot and see how it goes.
Anyone who's interested in joining this literary journey with me is welcome to. I fully understand that this kind of thing probably doesn't appeal to that many people, but I also think it would be fun to read these books with other people and have some brief discussions afterward. I'm just about to start a book I picked up today, but that one should go quickly, so I intend to start on A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lemontov by the end of next week. Let me know if you're interested!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A New Hope (Without the Jedis)
Congratulations to Barack Obama who will be the nation's 44th president beginning on January 20th. Many of you who know me know my political leanings, so I won't go into those here. But I do want to offer up some general thoughts on the country and its future.
Obama has the chance of a lifetime. I guess he would have that anyway (I mean, he is THE PRESIDENT), but even more so because of the state of the country and the world. Let's review the United States as Obama takes over:
1. The economy is hosed with no clear path to right itself, although it does appear that it's not going to get any worse. The only questions are how long it will take to get things to improve and what that will look like.
2. People have generally soured on the war. I don't even know if Bush knows why the war in Iraq started any more. Again, regardless of your opinion on the war itself, I think we need to at least reassess what the heck is going on over there and come up with a plan of action.
3. Higher unemployment than there's been in awhile.
4. Lots of other stuff that I'm sure I will remember later.
Obama really has the opportunity to be the most influential president since FDR in terms of the change he can bring about. With a Democratic Congress, he has incredible power to push across his policies. Those policies can bring the US out of its current state. Or they can bring change with no improvement, leaving us with different problems than we had before.
I'm not a very political guy. I definitely have opinions about certain issues, but they are simplistic. Anyone with in-depth knowledge of politics can confuse me in a matter of minutes. I don't like being that way, but other things have always taken priority, and I've never been motivated to take an interest in politics. I also have a profound disdain for the way politicians have to mold their principles and ideologies to appeal to the lowest common denominator, sometimes engaging in outright lying just to get a few votes.
This is the first time I feel motivated to change that and stay involved in what's going on with the US government. The next four years will be very interesting. Again, like him or not, Obama will be the next President, and it's pretty silly to hope the country gets worse just so Obama looks bad. There's nothing wrong with looking forward to the next election and hoping a candidate who better fits your ideologies is elected, but in the meantime, we're going to see a lot of changes and we should hope those changes make this country and this world a better place to live.
One last thing: there was a big deal made about Obama being the first black man to be elected president. I think that's good. There were a lot of emotional speeches from prominent media members and politicians about just how much that means. I am not old enough to remember outright segregation, but I know that racism is still rampant in the US. It may be a lot more subtle, but it's there. And let me be clear - I don't think that by electing a black man, all race issues are now gone. They're not. But this was undeniably a great moment for racial progress in the US and I'm glad it was recognized as such. I also hope that once the celebration is over, people can put the race issue behind them, no matter what side they're on, and judge the man purely as a president. I think we've come far enough as a country that that will happen.
So congratulations again, President Elect Obama. I pray that God leads you as you lead the country.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Whither thou, Garret?
Well, this could be the end of Garret Anderson’s long career with the Angels. The Angels bought out his contract today, effectively turning GA into an unrestricted free agent. I’ve mentioned this before, but I do not want to see him go. He’s been my favorite Angel for quite awhile and I’d like to see him finish his career with the Angels. Here are some of his stats and their rank amongst Angels:
.296 Batting Average (3rd behind Guerrero and Carew)
.469 Slugging (5th)
2013 Games Played (1st)
1024 Runs (1st)
2368 Hits (1st)
3743 Total Bases (1st)
489 Doubles (1st)
272 HR’s (2nd behind Salmon)
1292 RBI’s (1st)
Most of those categories aren’t even close. Garret’s been an Angel for a long time, and has been a good one. He isn’t the flashiest defender and he could certainly use a few more walks, but he’s been good for a long time.
Some of you will argue that he’s declining. I can’t dispute that. He isn’t the hitter or defender he used to be. He probably should be a platoon guy. But he should still be a part of this team. He can still contribute. He was never the face of the franchise (Salmon was and Guerrero’s been since then), but I think he’s perfectly happy with the role of quiet producer.
Some will argue that his impatient hitting approach is exactly what’s wrong with the Angels and that if they want to get better, they need to get him out of the lineup. Based on their run differential, the Angels were a 90 win team. (Let’s set aside the fact that 90 wins would have won the division by 11 games and probably would win the division by at least 5 next year.) The Angels need to improve their team for their postseason and that mostly lies with improving the offense. Again, I wouldn’t be upset seeing him in a platoon role, but I would also argue that there are many better ways for the Angels to increase their offensive output next season. Here’s my list:
1. Sign Teixeira for whatever it takes (two thirds of a season from Teixeira is probably worth an extra 3 – 5 wins over Kotchman)
2. Play Mathis once a week and Napoli the rest of the time (worth maybe a win when you factor in defense)
3. Sit GMJ down on the bench and play Morales (worth maybe another win)
4. Hope for some health and improvement from Kendrick (could be up to 2 or 3 more wins, but we can’t really know)
5. Get some improvement from Vlad who no longer has to carry the offense with Teix there and also has repaired knees (he got surgery)
6. Start Brandon Wood and get more power out of the shortstop position
Obviously some of those things will be offset by declines. Saunders may not put up numbers like that again. The Angels will probably have a 5th starter next year who is worse than Garland. The bullpen will probably take a step backward, although hopefully not by much. Either way, the things we can measure should put us up 6 more wins, which should easily win the division and match Boston’s team from this year.
Of course if we don’t sign Teixeira, that means signing Manny Ramirez or Adam Dunn or someone of that nature. Teix isn’t perfect, but he’s easily the least flawed hitter/defender on the market.
I’m not blind – there are definitely arguments to be made for letting GA walk. I’m just not ready to do that yet. He’s been a favorite player for a long time and I’d like to see him retire as an Angel with an outside chance at the Hall of Fame.
.296 Batting Average (3rd behind Guerrero and Carew)
.469 Slugging (5th)
2013 Games Played (1st)
1024 Runs (1st)
2368 Hits (1st)
3743 Total Bases (1st)
489 Doubles (1st)
272 HR’s (2nd behind Salmon)
1292 RBI’s (1st)
Most of those categories aren’t even close. Garret’s been an Angel for a long time, and has been a good one. He isn’t the flashiest defender and he could certainly use a few more walks, but he’s been good for a long time.
Some of you will argue that he’s declining. I can’t dispute that. He isn’t the hitter or defender he used to be. He probably should be a platoon guy. But he should still be a part of this team. He can still contribute. He was never the face of the franchise (Salmon was and Guerrero’s been since then), but I think he’s perfectly happy with the role of quiet producer.
Some will argue that his impatient hitting approach is exactly what’s wrong with the Angels and that if they want to get better, they need to get him out of the lineup. Based on their run differential, the Angels were a 90 win team. (Let’s set aside the fact that 90 wins would have won the division by 11 games and probably would win the division by at least 5 next year.) The Angels need to improve their team for their postseason and that mostly lies with improving the offense. Again, I wouldn’t be upset seeing him in a platoon role, but I would also argue that there are many better ways for the Angels to increase their offensive output next season. Here’s my list:
1. Sign Teixeira for whatever it takes (two thirds of a season from Teixeira is probably worth an extra 3 – 5 wins over Kotchman)
2. Play Mathis once a week and Napoli the rest of the time (worth maybe a win when you factor in defense)
3. Sit GMJ down on the bench and play Morales (worth maybe another win)
4. Hope for some health and improvement from Kendrick (could be up to 2 or 3 more wins, but we can’t really know)
5. Get some improvement from Vlad who no longer has to carry the offense with Teix there and also has repaired knees (he got surgery)
6. Start Brandon Wood and get more power out of the shortstop position
Obviously some of those things will be offset by declines. Saunders may not put up numbers like that again. The Angels will probably have a 5th starter next year who is worse than Garland. The bullpen will probably take a step backward, although hopefully not by much. Either way, the things we can measure should put us up 6 more wins, which should easily win the division and match Boston’s team from this year.
Of course if we don’t sign Teixeira, that means signing Manny Ramirez or Adam Dunn or someone of that nature. Teix isn’t perfect, but he’s easily the least flawed hitter/defender on the market.
I’m not blind – there are definitely arguments to be made for letting GA walk. I’m just not ready to do that yet. He’s been a favorite player for a long time and I’d like to see him retire as an Angel with an outside chance at the Hall of Fame.
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