My car is a piece of crap. The only thing that makes me angrier about this fact is that I have no one to blame about it but myself. I keep paying to get it "fixed" and then something else on it breaks. What else should I expect from a 1991 Volvo. I paid to have the engine replaced a few months ago and since then the muffler detached from the exhaust pipe and now all the coolant leaked out onto my driveway. I should have junked this thing years ago and gotten something else, like the the talking taxi from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
I'm sure you've heard Big Ben is likely getting the 4-6 game suspension. If he keeps it in his pants, it will be 4. [NFL.com]
Here is a pro-Ben take on the situation, has this all been a media frenzy based on rumors and baseless allegations? (I say no) [Ludwig]
Charles Barkley once again proving he has free reign to say what he wants, calls his studiomates A-holes. [Sportress of Blogitude]
Can Yankee fans live with themselves? [Rumors and Rants]
NFL schedule is out, here are the primetime games for the 2010 season. [Awful Announcing]
Jason Taylor is now a Jet. He was not exactly kind to New York when he was a Dolphin. [USAToday via Extra Mustard]
It's trivia Wednesday! Can you name the 50-point game scorers of the 90s? (I went 38/44) [Sporcle]
He is Vigo! You are like the buzzing of flies to him! [YBNBY]
Wednesday, April 21
Wednesday Links
Wednesday, April 14
Just Remember Kids...
"Wonder twin powers activate! Form of...a douchebag!"
If you cheat on your wife with beat, masculine women and madonna...
If you take steroids and lie about it...
If you have green-eyed jealousy for your team captain...
If you paint a mural of yourself as a centaur in your home...
If you use an HGH peddling doctor to heal your hip...
You too can be a world champion and get a $275 million contract!
Saturday, November 21
A Welcome To New York Facepalm
Moving to New York has been quite an experience. Not an a new one entirely as I have moved often over the last decade of my life and both my parents are from New York so I am familiar somewhat with the place. In fact, being originally from the north has led my sports allegiances to lie with teams in the New York/Connecticut (state of my birth) area. The first team I rooted for was the New York Mets. Some would call that a curse but when I was 5 going on 6 my grandfather and I were watching a little roller up a long first....BEHIND THE BAG! IT GETS THROUGH BUCKNER HERE COMES KNIGHT AND THE METS WIN IT! Sorry, I got a little carried away in memory land. The point of the story is that prior to the late 90s I never bothered with the Yankees. I even rooted for them in 1996 to beat the Braves. However in the past ten years I have grown to loathe them, as just about all non-Yankee fans do. This does not affect me too much, I spew Yankee hate and root against them at every turn. Now I live in the heart of Yankee fandom; I realize there are Yankee fans everywhere because they have the biggest bandwagon in the history of sport but now they are an everyday topic when it comes to sports. I thought I could accept this, until I started listeing to sports radio on hour long commute to and from work.
The Yankees fanbase is focusing on the offseason, which certainly is not a bad thing. Just because they have 27 titles (which they never fail to point out) does not mean they should not be thinking about free-agency and what to do with their expiring contracts. Fair enough. Yet all last week about 1 in every 3 Yankee calls (I also heard people out on the street saying this too by the way) were fans crying about Joe Girardi not winning AL Manager of the Year.
They backed their argument with a few reasons. Their first was that they won the World Series. What Joe Howyadoin does not realize is that it is a regular season award, not a post-season one. It just comes after the post-season because back in the old days when baseball was the king of the American sports scene it was a way to prolong baseball in the national landscape. Now that football rules it seems silly to prolong these individual awards but that is how MLB operates nowadays.
Next came the discussion of their record. 103 wins! The most in baseball. Fantastic and worthy of note, but again you consider that the Yankees have assembled a goliath payroll and their swallowing of high-priced free agents last off-season, they were built to win. They won only 6 more than the team that produced the AL MOY, the Angels. Girardi did a good job, but compared to Scioscia who operated with injuries, the death of one of his players, a bad start, and a payroll of $88 million less. With this collection of players, you have to be record-setting in wins to have done an award-winning job. Yet the result was the desired one, the team won the World Series even though Girardi's managing or sometimes overmanaging came into question.
I refer to this title for the Yankees as the Faust Title. The ownership, Cashman, and the fanbase were willing to pay any price to win. This goes beyond the $200 million payroll. The issue of the Yankees spending has been debated ad nausuem and while I agree if the Yanks have it and are willing to spend it, they are entitled. However, snatching up players by dangling suitcases full of cash in front of them is not exactly the highest attainment of sport. Think about the money the Yankees have thrown at players during their 6 year "drought" of championships. 
**Before anyone goes up in arms about my Mets fandom I feel the same way about the Mets spending $150 million. Besides the fact that the Mets cannot try to win that way (cough Bobby Bonilla) they usually fail outside of Santana to get production. The way for the Mets to thrive is to develop their young talent (like they did with Wright and Reyes) and add smart if a tiny bit pricey free-agents in their need areas (K-Rod). Of course every now and again spending big market money is necessary (get Halladay please).**
Next this Faustian 27th title was also brought in care of two admitted and proven PED users. I do not pretend to think that any team that has had success in the last 10-25 years in baseball did not have users. However, if you like to take the stance of having a clean team, winning with integrity, and the tradition of all who wore the pin stripes, then do not be a hypocrit. When the steroid scandal broke, how many holier than thou Yankee fans were cursing those that would cast a shadow on the sanctity of the game. Now you have the title with two players that lied about their use and then got caught red-handed and gave pathetic apologies. Petitte never faced any punishment for his use, whether it was league imposed or by the media and public. It was interesting how the public quickly misremembered what Andy did. A-Rod is even worse in my opinion. Here is a man who signed the biggest contract in history and juiced his way to an MVP and a spot on the Yankees. He may have been unfairly unmasked as a juicer, but when he was, he faced no penalty other than in the court of public opinion. No fines levied, no contract money returned, no games missed. He jumped right back into the line-up after his injury and was prancing around the bases with the grace of a centaur.
I have accepted the Yankees have won the title and will win more in the coming years, but what I cannot is the attitude of a contingent of their fanbase. It is amusing hearing from the level-headed portion of their fans. They enjoy their team winning, yet they know that it is not as pure as the driven snow. It is time to put aside the fantasy, you no longer play in the house that Ruth built, and it is a simple game of monopoly and the Yankees have more dark yellow bills than anyone else.
Monday, July 20
The Triple Crown: The Rest of the Story (pt. 1)
If Prince Albert thought the pressure of hosting an All-Star weekend all by himself was difficult, he's in no way going to be prepared for the full court press that will be the coverage of his quest for the Triple Crown. ESPN's Tim Kurkjian weighs in, with customary great tidbits thrown in (for example: "For [Frank] Robinson, it was the only season during his brilliant career in which he led his league in any of the Triple Crown categories").
If this quest can maintain steam into September, media outlets will begin pouring over past triple crown seasons with tons of interesting tidbits about each man that achieved the goal as well as notes from the season. With that in mind, and with a lot of help from Baseball Reference, we present the rest of the story: Triple Crown Edition. Guaranteed to make you cool when discussing baseball with anyone who knows Jeff Cirillo is the all-time batting average leader of the Milwaukee Brewers.
In 1901, when Nap Lajoie won the AL Triple Crown he hit 14 Home Runs, good enough to lead the league by two (only he and Buck Freeman hit for double digits). Last season, 122 guys hit for 15 or more in the majors (56 in the AL). Lajoie's .426 batting average still stands as the league's record and was 86 points higher than 2nd place Mike Donlin's .340 average, and was 98 points higher than last season's leader (Joe Mauer).
In 1909, Lajoie's rival, who would largely overshadow Lajoie in history, Ty Cobb won the Triple Crown with an astounding nine home runs, but all of them were inside the park. Cobb remains the only player to lead the league in home runs without hitting one out of the park. Although, Cobb's speed helped him lead the league in HRs, hits, and stolen bases, he did not lead the league in either doubles or triples.
Rogers Hornsby remains the only two-time winner of the National League Triple Crown, winning in the only two years he led the league in home runs. In both 1922 and 1925, Hornsby ran away with the award. In 1925, he led the league in RBIs by just thirteen, the closest of any category in either of the years.
1933 was the only year to have winners in both league, Jimmie Foxx in the AL and Chuck Klein in the NL. Had they played in the same league, neither would have won. Klein led the Majors in batting average, with Foxx having more homers and RBIs. In fact, Klein would've finished fourth in the home run race, behind Ruth and Gehrig. Foxx won his crown despite recording a league-leading 93 strikeouts. Foxx ran away with the AL crown, but Klein eclipsed Wally Berger by only one homer in the NL.
Lou Gehrig won not only the AL Triple Crown, but the MLB version. It was the only season that he played with Babe Ruth where he bested the Sultan in home runs. Gehrig did, however, top Ruth in both batting average and RBIs during the ten year span. Gehrig was also the first athlete to appear on a box of Wheaties.
The rest of the story on the... rest of the Triple Crown winners tomorrow.
Monday, June 15
Weekend Recap
Hi I'm Cleet and I'm a New York Mets fan. Yes I am aware that the above picture is how it is always going to be. I'd still rather live with this kind of crap than cheer for the Yankees.
Speaking of the Subway Series, no name Yankee reliever who is still on the DL called out K-Rod for celebrating too much after a win. Rodriguez confronted said reliever before the game yesterday because he is acutally a man and is nt afraid to talk face to face. Or maybe he just wanted to show this guy his ring. Video below. [MLB.com]
Speaking of rings, Phil Jackson now has more than Red, Kobe has one without Shaq, and yes Bobcats fans, Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown have one! [Yahoo Sports]
Speaking of semi-anonymous people getting rings, the Pens pulled the game 7 upset on the Wings on Friday. Marian Hossa is taking the heat, but he says "that's life." How profound [NHL.com]
Speaking of tough breaks, Jim Calhoun breaks his ribs but finishes bike race. He then did interviews, passed out and only went to the hospital at the behest of Ray Allen. [Hartford Courant]
Speaking of college basketball news, today is the deadline for players to withdraw from the NBA draft. Players like Luke Harangody have to make a difficult choice. [Sporting News]
Speaking of college athletes not everyone pays attention to, the IRA regatta to decide the men's rowing national champions took place last weekend (sorry forgot to post) with Washington taking the men's eight title. With that and the news about Nick Montana, the Husky faithful must be pretty content right now. [Row2k]
On a last note, I saw The Hangover this weekend. While I do think it was funny, I thought it went begging in several areas and would not put it in the upper echelon of epic raunchy comedies. I think it belongs in the second tier with movies like Road Trip, Euro Trip, and PCU but falls short of Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, or Wedding Crashers territory.
Saturday, February 7
A-Rod and Steroids
Unless you've had your head buried in a Top Chef marathon, you've heard the news that A-Rod tested positive for two steroids in 2003. As of this moment, we're the fourth site to embed this video and it has just over 20,000 views. Something tells me, that number will rise very quickly. So this post is not because this is cutting edge, but to observe the power of YouTube. For the record, the Yankees are far more damaging to baseball than steroids, but I digress...
Not only does A-Rod deny using steroids, but also defends Barry Bonds, which seems even less surprising now. This interview from 2007, was originally aired on 60 Minutes:
Wednesday, October 1
Roger Maris: You Don't Know [Blank]!
Today is the 47th anniversary of Roger Maris's 61st home run (I know, we were wondering why it wasn't being played up elsewhere too). So for the 2nd installment of our weekly trivia bonanza, we take a look back at the man, the game, and the record. Click for the full article to see all of the answers, as well as a scoring system. Feel free to post your score, and Cleet will send you wonderful prizes from the ever-growing ASD prize closet. 15 total answers, graded on a hanging curve, as always.
Roger Maris was born on September 10, 1934 in Hibbing, Minnesota, but he is more often associated with [The state], where he grew up and where his museum resides. During his first three years in the majors, Maris played for two other teams, the [No Cheating] and the A's of [I gave you A's]. He was traded to the Yankees before the 1960 season.On the final day of the 1961 season the Yankees defeated the [There were 10 teams, guess!], 1-0. The lone run came in the [1-9] inning, the record breaking home run for Roger Maris. His shot down the right field line came off starting pitcher [No help here]. As the chase progressed, commissioner [No F'n Help] ruled that the record would appear with an asterisk unless it was broken by the [Uno Car?]th game, which had been the length of the season in 1927 when Babe Ruth had hit his 60 home runs. Maris also became the first player to win [Don't look at me] in his first his two seasons with a team. He became the third Yankee to accomplish the feat, joining [Too easy] and [No Cheating] and it was not duplicated until 1993 and 1994 when [Not Chris Sabo] did it. Despite all of this, Maris is not in the Hall of Fame, and of the twelve men who have hit more than 55 home runs in a season the four that are in the Hall of Fame are Babe Ruth, [No peeky], [No Cheating] and [No Cheating ]. Answers and scoring after the break.
1. North Dakota
2. Cleveland Indians
3. Kansas City
4. Boston Red Sox
5. 4th
6. Tracy Stallard
7. Ford Frick
8. 154
9. Back-to-Back AL MVPs
10/11. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra
12. Frank Thomas
13/14/15. Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Hack Wilson
Scoring System:
0: Hit more than 61 home runs in one season
1-4: Hank Steinbrenner
5-6: Reuben Rivera (stop stealing answers or were you just being indecisive!)
7-8: Chuck Knoblauch (you knew one, but threw the answer away)
9-10: Paul O'Neill (knew 7-8, but lucked into a couple)
11-12: Derek Jeter (could've gotten all 16, but didn't want to show up teammates)
13-14: Alex Rodriguez (no questions about the post-season helped)
15: Joe DiMaggio
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