The Truth about Ketchup

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

What's on Second

Well, this one should be easy. Sorry for the delay - I got kind of busy at work.

Howie Kendrick
Positives: He’s a great line drive hitter, when he’s healthy. He plays a solid second base…when he’s healthy. He should develop some power, ummm, if he can ever, you know, stay healthy.
Negatives: Well…he can’t stay healthy. I don’t know what the Angels can do to solve this problem, but they need to do something, if something can be done. He also wouldn’t know a walk if it bit him in the balls, but if he’s healthy, he should hit enough to mitigate that problem.
Contract: Unless the Angels trade him (which I think would be stupid), he’s their second baseman for the foreseeable future. I’m fine with that. As long as he’s healthy…

Sean Rodriguez
Positives: He’s young. He hit a lot of bombs in AAA, although the PCL is an extreme hitter’s league, so that’s not as good as it seems.
Negatives: He strikes out every other at bat.
Contract: The Angels have him under control for awhile.

Outlook
I really like Howie. It pained me greatly to see him choke in the playoffs, but it’s hard to castigate him for 4 games. I’m really excited to see him play a full season. I hope 2009 is the year it finally happens. Rodriguez is a decent backup for the time being.

Who's on first?

So every year when you pay your first baseman, who gets it?

All $22 million of it.

(That's some foreshadowing right there folks)

Mark Teixeira:
Positives: The guy rakes. I'm not sure I need to go into detail about just how good of a hitter this guy is, but he's damn good. He's usually good for 40 doubles, 33 HR's, 110 RBI's, 75 walks. Something that impressed me - last season he walked the most in his career (97) and actually struck out less than he walked (93) for the first time in his career. So it's possible he's still getting better. He's also a ridiculously good first baseman, having won two gold gloves. He probably would have won one in the AL again this year had he been there all season. He'll be 29 in April next season.
Negatives: If you can find one...The only two things that are remotely negative: he's slower than molasses, if I may borrow a phrase from my father, and this may have been his peak. He was 28 this season which is about the year a lot of hitters peak. Yes, he did have that ridiculous 144 RBI season with Texas a few years ago, but he was actually better this year since he did what he did in pitcher's parks.
Contract: He's a free agent. And he's a Boras client. BOOOOOOOO! Even if this was his peak year, this guy's going to be good for awhile longer. He was hurt a little bit last year with Texas, but other than that, he's healthy. He's a switch hitter who plays great defense. He's patient. I have a feeling he's going to wind up getting 6 - 8 years at $20 - 23 million per year. That's Yankee territory. But with the salaries that are coming off the Angels books, I think it's worth it for them to sign him. Give him 7 years at $22 million. Vladdy is still good, but he's getting past his prime. Having Teix in the lineup could help keep Vlad going since he won't need to be Superman all the time. I am all for the Angels breaking the bank to get this guy signed.

Robb Quinlan:
Positives: His name starts with a "Q". He can hit lefties fairly well. He can "play" multiple positions, by which I mean Scioscia puts him at multiple positions and watches him struggle with his range and terrible hands. He is cheap though.
Negatives: He's not very good at baseball.
Contract: He's a decent bench guy to have around because he is somewhat versatile, even if he doesn't play any of those positions well. If he's dirt cheap, keep him around. If not, find a young guy who's decent but not going to turn into an everyday player and put him in this role.

Kendry Morales:
Positives: He's a switch hitter. He has good pop, better than Kotchman had at this stage. Most of this is from reports, since I haven't seen the guy play all that much, but his defense is supposed to be solid, but unspectacular. He's versatile - he actually played corner outfield positions in Cuba.
Negatives: He doesn't walk and is somewhat prone to striking out. He isn't actually that young (he'll be 26 next season) and hasn't played a full year in the majors.
Contract: The Angels have him locked up through 2010. I gotta believe, one way or another, Morales will be with a MLB team next season whether it's with the Angels or they trade him.

Others:
Any others are pretty much going to be free agents. From my vantage point, if the Angels don't get Teixeira, there aren't many options that are going to be more valuable than Morales. There are better players, but they'll all be pretty expensive. Here are some possibles anyway:
Jason Giambi: Assuming the Yanks buy him out. Terrible defender - probably should be a DH. Still has some pop and walks. I would hate to see him in an Angel uniform.
Sean Casey: Slower than slow. Has virtually no power left. Would be cheap.
Nomar Garciaparra: Ummm, no thanks.
Richie Sexson: ....that was a joke.
Adam Dunn: He's not really a first baseman, but he's not really a left fielder either. There's no way he could be worse at first base. This would be our second best option if we can't sign Tex. The guy hits 40 HR's a year. He walks a 120 times a year. Sure he strikes out a lot, but I'll put up with that for the extra power.

Outlook:
Really, we have to sign Teixeira. There's no one on the FA market who does all the things he does. Hits for power. Takes walks. Hits for average. Plays great defense. The Yankees are going to come after him, and from what I've heard, he doesn't seem like he fell in love with playing on the Angels or anything. So it's going to take close to $200 million to get him signed. I don't know what the Angels limits are, but that's got to be pretty close. I just don't know if 8 years, $175 million will be enough to overcome the Yankees' offer.

But man, we HAVE to sign this guy.

Angel Catchers

I’m going to go through the Angels’ lineup position by position and evaluate the guys they have there, the contract situations, and what the plan is or should be moving forward. We’ll start with the catcher position:

Mike Napoli:
Positives: Thanks to a torrid September (gotta love the word “torrid” right? I love those words that sound dirty but aren’t, like “titillating”), Napoli finished the season as the best hitting catcher in the majors. Seriously. Look at the stats. They’re ridiculous. He hit 20 HR’s – only 3 other catchers did that and each of them had at least 125 more AB’s. He OPSed .960 (the next best guy, min. 200 AB’s, didn’t even break .900). Maybe he was really rested in September because he got hurt during the middle of the season, but he is easily the best hitting backstop no one in the league is talking about.
Negatives: He strikes out a TON. And by a ton, I mean a crapload (metric conversion: one crapload = 128 hogsheads). He is one of those three true outcomes guys – he walks, he homers, or he strikes out. These things accounted for almost half of his at bats. It’s funny – he hit 20 HR’s and only 9 doubles. Anyway, his defense also gets a bad rap. I’m not sure about how to evaluate that, but I do know that he hardly ever throws anyone out. This may be somewhat on the Angels pitching staff, since Mathis doesn’t throw anyone out either. But it’s probably a combination of his bad mechanics and Angels pitchers having long deliveries.
Contract: He’s eligible for arbitration this winter. I would imagine the Angels will come to terms on something, maybe a 2 year $5 million deal or a one year deal for a couple million.

Jeff Mathis
Positives: ……………………………(crickets chirping)…………………………..(tumbleweed rolls by)………………………….you get the picture
Negatives: Well, he can’t hit. He struck out A TON. He did hit a few homers this year, but whereas Napoli looked like he knew what he was doing on the homers, with Mathis it was more a case of a blind walrus finding a deaf penguin (do walruses eat penguins? I thought they did). And for all of his supposed defensive prowess, he also made the most errors by a catcher and was not all that much better than Napoli at throwing out base stealers. Pitcher’s ERA when he caught was much lower than Napoli’s, but I’m convinced this is because the pitchers knew they had to shut down the opponent when he was in the lineup.
Contract: He’s under the Angels control for a few seasons. Whoopee.

Others
Ryan Budde: Every time I hear his name I think to myself, “Where’s Kid Sister?”
Bobby Wilson: Contrary to popular belief, he did NOT sing with the Beach Boys.
Hank Conger: He’s the guy for the future. He struggled a little bit this year and had some injury issues, but scouts think he’s going to be a solid big league catcher. He was in high A ball this year as a 20 year old, so it would be reasonable to expect him to see big league action in either September 2010 or 2011 if he continues to develop.

Outlook:
The Angels should get Napoli under a reasonable contract for the next two or three seasons until they know what they have in Conger. My ideal situation would be to sign Napoli to a one year deal. If Conger struggles in Double A, get Napoli under contract for a reasonable 3 year deal. If Conger does well, keep Napoli around for as long as it takes until Conger is ready. Catcher is a tricky position and I’m sure Scioscia won’t want to throw the kid to the wolves, so it’s nice to have a veteran around to platoon for awhile. As for Napoli, he’s a great hitter, but he has the sort of skill set that could go south awfully quickly (see Hafner, Travis for example), so you don’t want to sign anything more than 3 years. Keep Mathis around cheaply as long as you can. His value is shot and the Angels don’t have anyone else to back up Napoli anyway, so they might as well hold onto him. There is a chance, however slight, that Mathis may turn out to be decent. The guy was drafted right behind Joe Mauer, for heaven’s sake, so someone thought he was going to be pretty good. In retrospect, the Angels should have been leery of those emailed scouting reports from soproudofjeff34@mathismom.com.

More Useless Analysis

We're going to keep seeing a lot of this, at least for a few weeks. I don't necessarily agree with Scioscia's call (I'll reiterate why in a moment), but it is hardly the worst postseason managerial gaffe ever. Let me break down this guy's points:

• The infield was in, significantly increasing Erick Aybar's chances of producing the run with a swing. Significantly? I don't know how to look this up, but I'd love to see a stat that shows a guy's batting average on ground balls with the infield drawn in versus normal. Certainly it helps, but you still have to hit a ball hard and in the right spot. I'm not sure you could call this significant.
• Aybar was hitting left-handed, giving Jason Varitek a better look at the oncoming runner. I'm not sure why this matters. Why does Jason Varitek need a better look at the runner? If the bunt goes down, no matter who's at the plate, Varitek needs to get in position to make the tag. He's gotta watch the ball, not the runner. Aybar being left-handed also makes it easier for him to bunt the ball.
• The count was 2-0, allowing Aybar to be more selective. A 2-0 count with the infield in is a hitter's paradise. A-Rod might even produce there. Consider also that Aybar drove home the winning run 24 hours earlier with a base hit. This is a decent point, but for slightly wrong reasons. A 2-0 count is just as much of a bunter's paradise as a hitter's paradise, the assumption being that the pitcher has to come in with a strike to avoid being in a bigger hole. The problem is that you can only make that assumption with pitchers who have shown a command of the strike zone, and Delcarmen had not done that, which is my biggest beef with Scioscia's call.
• The previous six hitters who faced Justin Masterson: walk, walk, single, fly ball, double, sacrifice bunt. That means five of the six who tried to get on base did so. What does this have to do with Erick Aybar and Manny Delcarmen, two guys who were very different than the others who had faced off before? Who had gotten on base before? Teixeira, Guerrero, Hunter, and Morales, all better hitters with better pitch recognition than Aybar. Masterson struggled. Who knew what Delcarmen would do?

Yes, it was a big risk. Maybe too big. Well, in hindsight, obviously too big. But the reward was huge. What were Aybar's chances of at least putting a bat on that ball? 80%? 70%? And the thing that makes a squeeze so tough to defend is that the catcher can't help field the ball, so even a bunt that goes fifteen feet in front of home can't be fielded by the catcher. If a batter gets the bunt on the ground, you rarely see the runner at home thrown out. In fact, I can't recall this happening (at least on the Angels) in the past several seasons.

So if Aybar gets the bunt down in fair territory, there's a very good chance the Angels score. If he fouls it off, he's still in a hitter's count. What were his chances of having one of those two outcomes? I don't know, but Aybar's a very good bunter with good bat control (he got 9 bunt hits on 19 attempts during the season, a .474 average), I would put it at over 50%. What were his chances of getting the run in if he swings away? Well, he doesn't have much pop, so a sac fly was unlikely (he had one in 17 chances during the season). He is a slap hitter, so he might have been able to slap something through the infield. I don't know, you add all that up, and I don't think you get to 50%.

Alright, I'm not going to pursue this any further. It's going to drive me insane. I'm probably going to start posting some possible Angels offseason moves today or tomorrow. Maybe that will help my mindset.

And the hits just keep on coming

Unable to resist, I decided to listen to this clip. Talk about adding fuel to the flames of my anguish. The clip is Dave Campbell, the guy who provided color commentary for ESPN's radio broadcast of the Angel game, explaining to Mike & Mike why he thought that Reggie Willits should have been safe at third on the failed squeeze play.

I will say that everyone I watched with immediately concluded that Willits was out. Varitek seemed to hold the ball long enough. Campbell's point is twofold: 1) The umpires should have at least conferred, especially with the left field ump who also had a good look at the play and 2) If this play had happened in other circumstances (say a play at the plate where Varitek had lost the ball when he hit the ground), Willits would have been unquestionably safe. The rulebook also has a statement that the tagger has to maintain possession of the ball after the tag until the ball is given up intentionally.

He makes good points and if you enjoy torturing yourself with "what ifs," feel free to listen. I did. It doesn't quite convince me to send Tim Welke hate mail, but his secondary point is valid too - if this had happened to Boston, there would be a gigantic uproar in the Northeast. The Angels seem to be content to let it go. Food for dark thought.

Scioscia's Options

So this is obviously on my mind. I’m going to be like this for a few days. Just bear with me.

What were Scioscia’s options other than squeezing in that situation?

1. Squeeze on a different pitch. Probably a good call since Delcarmen hadn’t thrown a strike.
2. Let Aybar swing away. Well, Aybar is not all that great of a hitter. And he has no pop. A decent portion of his hits this year were from infield singles. I’m not all that optimistic about Aybar getting the run home by swinging away. Of course if he makes an out you have Figgins up, but now Figgins HAS to get a hit to get the run in.
3. Pinch hit for Aybar. Let’s look at our options:
A. Wood, Mathis, Quinlan: All of them would be at a disadvantage from the righty-righty matchup. Especially against a hard thrower like Delcarmer. Mathis and Wood are strikeout machines, which is the last thing you want when you’ve got a guy on third.
B. Matthews Jr.: Well, he is a lefty with some pop, so he would have a chance to bring the runner home with a well-placed out. But there are two problems with this as well. One is that GMJ looked terrible against Papelbon. And I know, Papelbon is good, so that’s not terrible, but his bat looked really slow and he’s prone to the strikeout as well. The second is that if you take out Aybar, you lose a decent amount of defense at shortstop when you have to replace him with Wood or Figgins. Aybar has better range and a better arm than both of them, even if his hands aren’t quite as good. If the Angels were losing by one (and thus needed the run to even keep the game going) or this was a home game where the game ends if a run scores, then I say you do it. But even if the Angels had scored there, they need to go out and play defense.

None of these options really excite me. The stat guys and bitter Angels fans will all say that number 2 or number 3B were the ways to go. I still think number 1 gives us a pretty good shot to win. The Angels are a small ball team and had their best bunter at the plate. He just didn’t get it done.

Game 4: Last Dance with Mary Jane

One more time to kill the pain. Yeah, this one was painful. But this brings up an interesting dilemma. Which is more painful, losing like this or getting pounded by a clearly better team like the Angels did last year?

This one is hard. On the one hand, I enjoyed watching this series WAY more than last year. But I have a feeling this loss will linger into the offseason, while it was easy to write off the loss last year. I’m thinking this one will be more painful.

How about this one: is it more painful to be the better team and lose or to be the worse team and lose even though you should have won? I think the former is a lot more painful. And I think that’s why the Angels are so mad (Lackey said afterwards that he wanted to throw someone through a wall). They feel they were the better team and lost. Were they better?

There are so many ways to define better. Did they perform better during the regular season? Survey says: Maybe. The Red Sox outscored them by like 80 runs and gave up the same, which indicates the Red Sox were better. But the Angels won more games, which at the end of the day, is the ultimate measuring stick for a baseball team. Inconclusive.

Were they fundamentally a better team (as in, were the players who comprised the Angels more talented than those of the Red Sox?) This is a tough one too. I think you could definitely make the argument that the Red Sox were more talented offensively (Ortiz, Bay, Youkilis, Pedroia, Drew vs Vlad, Teixeira, Hunter, Anderson, and Napoli). But I would put the Angels top 4 starters and top 4 relievers ahead of the Sox. I think the Sox are probably a little bit more talented overall, but after adding Teix, I don’t think the gap is all that big.

Lastly, who was the better team as measured by their performance in this series? Game 1 was definitely the Sox. Game 2 was tough – the Angels had guys on base almost every inning, they just couldn’t get the big hit (ultimately what doomed them in this series). The Sox got the big hit, but the Angels played a better game overall. It’s kind of a wash, maybe give the Sox a slight edge. Game 3 was definitely played better by the Angels. One mistake cost them 3 runs, otherwise, they were the better team.

Game 4 was another tough one. Lester was good for 7 innings. Lackey was good, but not quite as good. The hitters were equally baffled except for a couple of innings where they put some hits together. The difference is that once again, the Angels made one crucial error (crucial may be the understatement of the eon). The Red Sox didn’t. I’ve done my share of doubting when it comes to K-Rod, but I really believe, with the second half of the Sox lineup coming up, that he would have held a one run lead in the ninth. My belief doesn’t mean anything of course, because it didn’t happen. Anyway, I think the Sox outplayed them again, but not by much at all. When you factor in Lackey’s pride and belief in his team’s abilities, you can’t fault him for thinking the Angels got beat by a worse team. And the difference between the two seems so close, it’s hard to even know if he’s wrong.

So where to lay the blame for this one? There’s essentially four possible places:

1. The hitters (as a whole): They couldn’t get anything going and for the most part couldn’t capitalize the few times they DID have something going. However, I don’t think this is place for blame. Sometimes you give credit where credit is due, and Jon Lester was very very good last night.

2. Shields. Again, I don’t think you can blame Shields very much. Bay’s double was an opposite field bloop. Lowrie’s hit was a seeing eye single that came about 6 inches from Kendrick’s glove. The guy had pitched 3 and two thirds innings in the last two nights and had pretty much shut the Sox down. He does get some blame for not mixing up his pitches at all (more on that in a second). So I give him 7% of the blame.

3. The coaching staff: Namely, Scioscia for calling the squeeze and Scioscia/Butcher for not at least going out to talk to Shields after he gave up that rocket to Kotsay and had thrown about 90% curveballs in the inning (when the curveball is not his best pitch). Last one first. Not going out to visit Shields was poor coaching. Who knows what would have happened, but it might have helped. As for the squeeze, I don’t think the squeeze itself was a bad call, but I wouldn’t have called it on that pitch. Delcarmen had just come in the game and hadn’t really come all that close to the strike zone. It’s a pretty tough assumption that Delcarmen would throw a strike since he hadn’t shown he could. Delcarmen’s a young guy in a HUGE pressure cooker. I would have waited until the guy threw a strike to make that call. I put about 30% of the blame here.

4. Aybar: The rest of the blame goes here. Yeah, it might have been a questionable call, but you absolutely have to put the bat on the ball. You have to. You do whatever the heck it takes. That pitch should haunt him all offseason long.

So yeah, this was painful. I’ll be transferring my allegiance to the Rays, and to the Dodgers to some extent. I really just hope for good baseball from here on out. (EDIT: This isn't true. I actually hope the Red Sox get humiliated in the ALCS.)

I might be offering some insight as to the rest of the postseason, especially if there’s a particularly interesting game that I have the chance to watch. Outside of that, I’m not sure what I’ll be putting on this blog. I’m going to try to update it several times a week, but who knows what it will look like. We’ll see. Check back regularly.

Good season Angels, despite the bad ending. I’ll be here next season.

Game 3: All I Need is a Miracle

What an intense game. I'd like to thank the Angels for helping me with my weight loss program. I lost 7 pounds in sweat last night while waiting for the Halos to win it. Of course I put that weight back on by nervously eating various snack foods all evening. I also developed an ulcer. I withdraw my thanks.

Still, that was quite a contest. I was sure at 483 different moments that the Red Sox were about to win it. That has nothing to do with lacking faith, or hope, or belief or whatever. It also has nothing to do with the quality of our relievers, who, by most objective measures, are pretty darn good. It has everything to do with the fact that the Red Sox had beaten us in the playoffs 11 times in a row and seemed to always be able to pull off that win.

Pretty much all of the at bats in the 10th were nerve-wracking (thank you and your 62 saves, K-Rod). Youkilis, Bay, Lowell, Lowrie...I was sure all of them were going to end it. Lowell's at bat in particular made me nervous, although I'm not sure why. I guess I just figured it would be some dinky single that did it this year. Pedroia was up with a man in scoring position in the 11th. They walked Ortiz for the 9th time that game in the 12th inning.

But the relievers held firm. What a game.

Player of the game: Easily Mike Napoli. He had a rough start in game 1 when everyone was expecting him to continue his September (OPS in September? 1.414. Wow), further "justifying" Scioscia starting Mathis in game 2. But man did he explode in this game. Two absolute BOMBS off of Beckett that silenced the Boston crowd. And then he went ahead and scored the winning run.

Unsung hero: Scot Shields. The ESPN game recap link is titled: "Napoli's bat, K-Rod's arm help Halos avoid sweep." Except Shields was the one who threw 2 and a third scoreless innings, not allowing a baserunner and striking out three. That was huge. (Anyone care to take a guess as to Shields's career ERA in Fenway? 13.85 in 13 innings. Yeah...)

Game changing play: Aybar's single in the top of the 12th to score Napoli. I'd like to say that I was sure that the Angels would pull this out in extra innings, but that's not true at all. Aybar's single was the first time I let myself dare to hope.

The "Johnny Damon Award for Best Throw from Center" goes to...Coco Crisp! This is his first "Caveman."

Coco: I'd like to thank my sister and my grandma for teaching me how to throw. I love you guys! And thanks to God for not letting anyone's criticism get me down. You helped keep me going.

Play that would have been game changing and also would have caused most Angels fans to become alcoholics: That stupid pop up in the 2nd inning. We were debating whether this play would give Howie Kendrick the honor of having the worst postseason ever. He's packed a lot of awfulness into three games. This is not to exonerate Torii Hunter, who should have called that ball all the way. Torii gave up on it, thinking Kendrick had it. I still think more of the blame goes to Kendrick who was closer to the ball and looked like he would get it the whole time. This totally ruined a solid start by Saunders. We were joking in the 11th inning (at which point we'd become mostly hysterical) that Saunders was probably on his second bottle of Jack Daniels in the clubhouse and was going to brawl with Kendrick as soon as the game was over.

Biggest mystery: The strike zone. Did anyone have any idea where exactly this was? I'm also giving a big runner up to the "K-Zone" or whatever they call it on TBS. On one low, inside pitch to Garret Anderson, they brought up K-Zone and I was sure they were going to show the pitch going right down the middle.

Chip Caray: Well, it looks like the umpire missed that one. K-Zone shows a strike there.

Buck Martinez: Well Chip, the replay shows that this pitch actually grazed Garret Anderson's kneecap, but his knee must have been hovering over the middle of the plate, because that's clearly a strike according to K-Zone.

Chip: Well, that's just a professional, big league K-Zone. What a gamer that K-Zone is.

Angel grades:

Everyone gets an A, except for Mike Napoli and Shields, who both get an A+. I'm feeling generous.

Final word:

It's hard to believe that the Angels still have to win two more games. That one should be worth two. Still, I don't anticipate a let down tonight. In fact, I think this win will give them confidence, since they haven't been able to do anything against Boston so far in the playoffs. This broke the seal, so to speak. Plus they've got their ace Lackey going for them tonight and last time he was in Boston, he came two outs away from a no hitter. Let's hope we see that again.

Oh irony, how you mock me...

I'm not sure if this will change before you can see it, but check out the ad on the very top of this page.

Yep, that's an encouragement to vote for Francisco Rodriguez as the Pepsi Clutch Performer of the Year.

I'm not sure if that's hilarious or tragic.

Game 2: Mission Impossible

I...don't know where to begin. This post might be 10,000 words. So many things going through my head.

I guess I'll start with this: I was at this game in person. I have been to one playoff game every year the Angels made the playoffs since 2002. ALDS game 1 in 2004. ALDS game 5 in 2005. ALDS game 3 last year. And this game.

This was, without a doubt, the loudest, most raucous, most intense baseball game I have ever been to. It was amazing. It was a TON of fun. Angel fans as a group caught flak the other night for walking out after Boston scored in the ninth. They took that as a challenge and came through. Even after that disastrous first inning from Santana, the crowd was in it until the end. But the end was bitterly painful.

Let me make an analogy to describe it; one that is completely over-the-top. You start dating this girl. You think it's love at first sight, but on the first date, she drops a bomb. "I hate all television shows except soap operas and Grey's Anatomy. I refuse to watch any other television," she tells you. Well that sucks, but it doesn't HAVE to be a deal-breaker, you know? So you keep dating. And every so often, you find another thing you have in common. And another thing. And another. You're having a great time and it just keeps improving.

Finally, you have this great breakthrough and you immediately go out and buy a ring. You show up the next day, ready to surprise her and take this to the next level. This is it. You're ready to be happier than ever. You open the door...and see that she's banging JD Drew. Done. Game over.

That's kind of how it felt to be an Angel fan tonight. There was this incredible emotion; this palpable energy; all of that cliched stuff. It was October baseball as only October baseball can be. As fans in that 8th inning, we took some ownership of that comeback. We felt it was ours. We'd screamed and yelled our asses off for 8 innings, and we were finally back in it. We worked hard for that comeback. Every time an Angel got on base after the third inning, the entire crowd was up. Even when the Sox got some guys on base and Sox fans started the "Let's go Red Sox," they were drowned out in seconds. Best crowd I've ever been a part of.

And it was all thrown out the window in about 5 minutes.

Alright, now for the objective analysis.

Player of the game: Mark Teixeira. F*** you, JD. That's right, you're garbage. I picked Teixeira. The guy was 3 for 3 with a walk and a sac fly, scored three runs, and made a couple of nice plays at first. This is what's scary. Teix, Vlad and Hunter in this series: 14 for 23 with three walks. Yeah, they've all been singles, but a lot of them have been hit hard. If the Angels can't win when the middle of the order does THAT, it's time to be worried.

Game changing play: Don't make me say it. Nope. I won't say it. I refuse.

Blown call of the game: That pickoff at second in the ninth. Man was that bad. Crisp couldn't even get to the base because Aybar was blocking it. Yeah, the tag was late, but it didn't matter because Crisp DIDN'T GET TO THE BASE. Who knows if that changes the way K-Rod pitches to Drew? Probably doesn't. But a one run lead is a lot different than a two run lead against Papelbon.

Angel Grades
Figgins (B+): He did have some frustrating at bats in this game. That .200 OBP is the main reason why the middle of the order only has 4 RBI's, even though they have 14 hits. But man, that triple was SWEET.
Anderson (F+): The plus was for that ball he almost hit out off of Okajima. The rest of the game was awful, especially that pop up with Figgins on third.
Teixeira (A): No A+ because he still only hit singles, but so much for Teixeira being intimidated by his first postseason action. Can you smell a $200 million contract, Scott Boras?
Vlad (A-): This might be rough since he did go 3 for 4 with a walk, but man could the Angels have used some extra base fireworks.
Hunter (B+): Two clutch RBI's. His error in center didn't hurt anything. Should have been safe at first.
Rivera (C+): A solid "meh." The two walks were nice, but I thought he could have gotten to Ellsbury's double in the 4th.
Kendrick (G): That's right, he doesn't even deserve an F. He was terrible. Left 6 guys on base, again. Ugh, he's gotta figure this out. He swung at some BAAAAD pitches.
Mathis (C): Struck out terribly, and got lucky with that blooper.
Aybar (F+): Left a lot of guys on base. Made an error.

Bench (B-): Napoli was the redeeming factor here with that bases loaded walk. Matthews fouled out, Willits didn't do much, and Morales popped up.

Santana (C): Yeah, he gave up 5 runs. But he also kept the team in it and never let momentum swing back over to the Sox. He had the one bad inning, otherwise he looked decent.
Bullpen (excluding K-Rod) (B+): Arredondo was shaky but got the job done. Shields looked good for two batters at least.
K-Rod (F): Could very well have been his last appearance as an Angel at Angel Stadium. Way to go out there, buddy.

Scioscia (B): The only quibble I have is going to K-Rod in the eighth when I think Shields could have gotten Pedroia. If Pedroia reaches, then you go to K-Rod to face Ortiz. But I think he would have been better served letting K-Rod start the ninth. That isn't that big a deal. It seemed like an okay move at the time. I liked the aggressiveness in pinch hitting Morales for Mathis early in the game, even though it didn't work out.

Final word
Intense game. This probably would have been the best baseball game I'd ever seen live if the Angels had won it. Even still, it ranks way up there.

Well, they gotta win three in a row, including two in Boston. Not impossible, to be sure, but not very easy, either. One at a time, boys. You can do it.

Game 1 Analysis

Crappy. That pretty much describes last night’s game. Alright, I’m done here. See ya guys on Friday! Just kidding.

I think what I’ll do for these game analyses is give out grades and mention some key players/plays. We’ll see how it goes.

Player of the game: Jon Lester. He wasn’t phenomenal or brilliant or any of those other superlatives broadcasters and media personnel are probably using to describe him, but he was good. And against the Angels last night, that was enough. He did get better as the night went on; he looked stronger in the sixth and seventh than he did in the first three innings.

Game changing play: Bay’s homerun. It did a few things: gave the Red Sox the lead in a tight game, gave the Red Sox confidence when John Lackey had been pretty good, shot down the Angels confidence (which wasn’t all that high to begin with), and took the crowd partially out of the game.

Game changing play – Runner Up: Vlad getting thrown out at third. This was the first time the Angels had strung hits together in a few innings. The play was bad on so many levels: if Vlad plays it cautious the whole way, he’s standing on second base with one out, which is just fine. I have no problem with Vlad being aggressive, but he needed to be aggressive right off the bat. He hesitated and that was that. This completely hosed a possible Angels rally (even though Howie Kendrick might have grounded into a double play right after that anyway). This also served to take the crowd, who represented themselves pretty well, I must say, the rest of the way out of the game.

Managerial move that looks bad in hindsight, but wasn’t: Not pinch running for Vlad, who’s running like a lame musk ox at this point. Why not pinch run Willits? Because that means you take one of the only two legitimate power threats out of your lineup. If Vlad’s spot comes up in the ninth with a chance to tie the game and you’ve got Juan Rivera or Brandon Wood in there, you’re losing a lot. You could argue that with the way the Angels were hitting, they couldn’t really afford to mess around with that tying run, but I don’t think you take Vlad out of the game.

Managerial move that looked bad at the time, and then bad in hindsight as well: Pitching to David Ortiz with two outs and a guy in scoring position. Dumb. And Dumber. Youkilis isn’t chopped liver coming up next, but you’ve got one of the premier RBI guys in the game at the plate, you have a lefty-righty matchup that would turn to a righty-righty matchup, and Shields wasn’t looking good anyway. I couldn’t believe it when Scioscia didn’t call for the walk. A minute later, a bouncer up the middle through the shift and an "insurmountable" 3-run lead.

Angel grades:
Figgins: (F) He looked overmatched. All those singles hit by the middle of the order guys might have been useful if he’d been on base. 3 K’s. Yuck.
Anderson: (B) A couple of nicely hit singles. He also scored the only run. He didn’t leave anyone on base, which might have been the best thing he did (or didn’t do).
Teix: (B) He had a couple of singles as well. He DID leave a guy on base, but also made a nice play over at first. Not a bad playoff debut.
Vlad: (C -) He had some nice hits, but also left guys on base. Plus there was that gigantic base-running mistake that killed our comeback chances.
Hunter: (B+) He was the only one who got a hit with guys in scoring position and he was on base three times. All his hits were singles, but this was a good game for Hunter.
Kendrick: (F) He was as bad as Figgins, except in the opposite way. Instead of leaving the tables bare, he left them full. 6 guys left on base. No hard hit balls.
Napoli: (D) The only reason this isn’t lower is because Kendrick never gave him the chance to do anything meaningful. Napoli looked awful.
Matthews: (F +) Same as Napoli, except he had that awful error in right. It wound up not costing us, but man, that was bad.
Aybar: (D) See Napoli, except replace Kendrick with Matthews.

Bench: (A) Morales singled in the one chance the bench got, so we can’t complain about that. This is like getting an A on 10 point quiz when you're failing the class.

Lackey: (A -) He was by far our best player. He made one mistake pitch (although he shouldn’t have walked Youkilis, but that happens against the Sox). He probably could have gotten through 8 innings if Matthews doesn’t blow that play in right.
Oliver: (A) He was our second best player, in a limited role. That strikeout of Ortiz was HUGE and helped get the crowd back into it.
Shields: (D) The two run scoring singles he gave up were seeing eye grounders. But he didn’t pitch well by any stretch. He was behind most hitters.

Scioscia (D) He didn’t have many opportunities to affect the game, but he blew the big ones he could have made. It was a good move to bring in Oliver to face Ortiz. I think he made the right non-call when it came to pinch-running for Vlad. But the decision to pitch to Ortiz later was awful. And he stuck with Shields too long. It’s usually clear when Shields has his A stuff, and he clearly did not have that. Arredondo is not as good a pitcher as Shields (their ERA’s this year notwithstanding), but Shields wasn't on. And with the Angels hitting like that, it was imperative to keep the lead at one run.

Final Word: Overall, the Angels just got beat by a better team. Sometimes that happens. The Sox were better last night. But it’s not the end of the world. The Angels beat the Sox 8 straight times during the season, so it’s not like they can’t beat them 3 out of 4. I do think Friday’s game is as close to a do-or-die as it gets without actually being one. The Angels DO NOT WANT to go to Fenway needing to win both games. I think they can, but it’s a lot of pressure.

3 Short Questions

Will there be too many Boston fans at Anaheim Stadium tomorrow?

It’s a pretty safe bet that there will be more than zero, so the answer is yes. These people are awfully good at just blending in during the average day. Then as soon as the Red Sox are in town, the a-hole quotient rises exponentially. The air becomes even more unclean. You go home and you feel like you need to take a shower. Such is the affect of Red Sox Nation (chief exports: hot air and bandwagons).

How bad is it that Lackey/Santana got shelled last week?

I think it’s bad, but not terrible. I don’t think you ever want to get hit around like that, and especially not before your biggest start of the season. These guys are professional pitchers and they’ve experienced stuff like this before, but it could still be a hit to their confidence. I think it will definitely affect Lackey more than Santana. Lackey tends to get pretty emotional. The first two innings are going to be the key. If Lackey can get through those having given up only a single or two, I think he’ll forget about last Friday awfully quickly. If he gets roughed up a little bit, I think his confidence will be shaken and he’ll start nibbling – which is NOT the pitcher we want Lackey to be. He needs to be aggressive with his fastball and feel comfortable throwing his slurve for strikes. Santana, on the other hand, isn’t as emotional. I think he’ll be able to put it aside better than Lackey will.

How will Teixeira do in his first playoff experience?

I think he’ll be fine. He doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who gets too nervous (although his Angels debut wasn’t great and he said he had butterflies). True, he’s never really been in any pressure-packed games with the Rangers or the Braves, and you can’t really say that any of the Angels’ games were meaningful, since they had a 55 game lead in August. Still, he’s shown a tendency to get better as the season goes on, and he doesn’t seem to care whether he’s facing the Rangers’ fifth starter or Josh Beckett – the dude just rakes. He was hitting late inning go ahead grand slams in Yankee Stadium a couple games after he joined the team. He also came in second in the league in WPA* which is incredible, considering he was only in the AL for 54 games.

*WPA means Win Probability Added. Basically, it’s a measurement of how a player’s at bats either added or subtracted to his team’s chances to win games. The higher the number, the better chance of wining your at bats gave your team (conversely, a negative number means your at bats actually made your team more likely to lose). So in aggregate, Tex’s at bats had a better positive effect on his team than everyone in the AL but Joe Mauer. That’s a pretty good indication this guy can perform in the clutch.

Is Vlad a Different Hitter in the Postseason?

It’s certainly possible. There’s a lot of statistical analysis out there about how there really isn’t a “clutch” ability. It’s very hard to demonstrate that someone consistently hits better when games are on the line. Conversely, I haven’t seen much of anything about whether or not guys choke in those situations. A-Rod has been getting ragged for years about this, but remember, he was actually pretty darned good in the playoffs with the Mariners. He actually wasn’t bad his first two series with the Yankees either. Buster Olney wrote a piece the other day about how David Wright gets a little too jacked up in pressure situations and it affects his hitting.

So does this happen with Vlad? Well, the numbers aren’t pretty: .183/.258/.233 in the playoffs. One extra base hit in 16 games (a grand slam to tie game 3 against Boston in 2004). In the 2005 ALCS against the White Sox he went 1 for 20. Yuck. To be somewhat fair, the Angels on the whole have been really bad on offense during that period, so part of it is that they’ve just run up against some good pitchers. But that happens in the playoffs and you’d hope your best hitters would be able to generate something.

Vlad seems like a guy who does put more pressure on himself. I watch a lot of Angels games and there are times when it looks like he presses a bit; especially when the Angels go through slumps, Vlad looks like he tries to put the team on his shoulders, and it doesn’t always work. He expands his strike zone even more (how this is possible, I don’t know) and winds up weakly hitting a lot of bad pitches. Vlad’s a freak of nature, don’t get me wrong. This man can hit a garbage pitch farther than a lot of guys can hit a meatball right down the middle. But when he tries to hit everything a mile, he winds up twisting himself in knots. He has had a history of carrying the Angels at certain points, so this isn’t eminently true. But he does look like he presses in the playoffs.

So will it be different this postseason? I think it will. For one thing, Vlad’s as healthy as he’s been in awhile. He was really struggling with knee issues in 2005 and 2007, plus shoulder issues in 2007 as well. He’s had some knee issues this year, but clinching early allowed him to take two weeks off and get the knee as healthy as possible. He had a very good September, although he’s had good Septembers in the past.

The main thing, though, is that this year he’s got someone to help carry the load. He’s never had a Mark Teixeira in the lineup with him. In 2004, the Angels had Jose Guillen, but he threw a tantrum before the playoffs and got left off of the roster. They also had Troy Glaus, but Glaus had been hurt a lot of the year. In 2005 and 2007, Garret Anderson has really been the only one there to take the pressure off of Vladdy. As much as I like Garret, he’s just not nearly as scary as a guy like Tex. I think Teixeira could wind up being the thing Vlad needs to get him to loosen up in the postseason. He knows it’s not do-or-die every time he steps to the plate now. That could be huge, and I think it will be.