More Gammons

Peter Gammons now has a column that is essentially a writing out of the thoughts he expressed after Game 7 on SportsCenter, to which I responded on Thursday. This time he tries to buttress his "Hitting? What hitting? It's all about pitching!" argument by submitting, in as obnoxious a tone as possible, that Keith Foulke should have been the World Series MVP:

If Major League Baseball actually took such things seriously, Foulke would have been the MVP of the World Series; Fox didn't consider Foulke enough of a name to give him the award.

Now, I wouldn't go so far as to call this proposal of Foulke-as-MVP ludicrous; one can, in fact, make a quite reasonable argument, mostly because there was no clear-cut MVP in the short series. I would, myself, disagree. Foulke did have one truly big appearance in Game 1, where he managed to get the final two outs of the 8th inning with the bases loaded by inducing two Cardinals hitters to not hit it to Ramirez. (Although he did allow a hit to Renteria, the first batter he faced, that inning. No base hit, no Manny throwing error.) He then got through the 9th in 4 batters to get the win after Bellhorn's homer. But in his remaining appearances in games 2, 3, and 4, he entered the game with leads of 4, 4, and 3 runs and 4 or fewer outs to get each time. Big deal. To blow one of those leads would have required a choke of Buckner-like proportions.

Now, as I say, I am willing to concede that an argument can be made. But certainly the most you can say here is that "You can argue that Foulke should have been MVP." To say that MLB and Fox are idiots or involved in a conspiracy for not thinking just like Gammons is pure egotistical drivel.

Gammons quite possibly breaches the bounds of drivel not once but twice in the same paragraph, when he goes on to say:

Foulke finished all four games against the Cardinals, and allowed a Larry Walker home run with a 4-0 lead in Game 3 because he knew a walk could ignite a rally and invited hitters to try to take him deep until it got close.

I'm going to give King Pete the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that this is not what he means, but this sounds dangerously close to the Stupidest Baseball Announcer Aphorism Ever: the idea that it's better to hit, say, a double than a home run in certain situations, because the double leaves someone on base, thus "keeping the rally going," you see. (Generally announcers suggest this in situations where a home run would not be enough for the rallying team to tie the game. And yes, I really have heard more than one announcer say this.) This gem of Conventional Wisdom is easily discredited by the suggestion that, well, if a guy does screw up and hit a home run, why doesn't he just stop at second?

Shooting around

I'm not normally one for these shows where a bunch of ex-jocks sit around and see who can sound more hip and streetwise than the others, but I decided to give ESPN's new Kia NBA Shootaround show a shot based solely on the fact that the commercials for this show were quite possibly the most hilarious of the decade (I refer specifically, of course, to the one with the mimes).

Okay, I'll admit I don't have anything real intelligent to say yet. But my first reaction to the show has to do with the set: you've got 4 guys sitting around a desk that doesn't have enough curvature in it, so they all have to talk to each other at awkward angles. Plus the thing is too darned small, too, so these guys are sitting a little too close to each other for my comfort level. What if somebody wants to swing an elbow?

(Speaking of swinging elbows, Karl Malone thinks he could do a better than some of the guys in this show, though he doesn't name names. Now, I haven't seen any job listings posted, but I'm pretty sure that 4th-grade English is a requirement. Hmm. Then again, maybe not.)

The banter is actually pretty good, though. The bald black guy is pretty funny. I was never a big fan of the whole TNT Charles Barkley-Kenny Smith thing, anyway, although I seem to be in the minority on that count.

So the Shootaround doesn't look bad. But you can also be sure that it will feature of lots of Very Special Made-For-ESPN story segments, e.g.: "Does Kobe love Shaq? Does Shaq love Kobe? Did I mention just how mad Shaq is?"

Peter knew all along, of course

Paraphrasing Peter Gammons, who is locked in a nip-and-tuck battle with Dan Patrick for ESPN's biggest ego, during SportsCenter's post-game analysis of the Sox sweep:

"People talk about that nitwit, medieval concept of the Curse, but in reality, what it was was that for 86 years, management believed that to win with Fenway as your home ballpark, you build around offense. Epstein came in and said, you win championships with pitching, and that's how the Sox won the World Series, with good pitching."

Okay, first of all, Peter, I've got some news for you: people didn't really believe in the Curse. Sure, it made good copy, and marketers loved it, and people kind of had it in the back of their minds, perhaps as a kind of perverse therapy, but people didn't really believe in it. Mostly it was just kind of a running joke. Sorry you didn't get it. But you are not the only enlightened person in a country of idiots (a general theme of Gammons' commentary).

Second of all, isn't it funny how Gammons left the "good fielding" part out of the "Good pitching and good fielding win championships" cliche? After all, I thought that was the big impetus behind the Nomar trade. Upgrade your fielding, to make those clutch defensive plays that decide championships in October. Instead, the Sox set a record for errors in a winning cause. Twice.

And finally, "building around pitching." Are you saying that if Buckner picks up that ground ball, then building around offense is the correct approach after all? Kind of a funny way to decide that question. I seem to remember that the Sox had a couple of pretty good pitchers in '86, too. And if Rivera slams the door a week ago Sunday, is building around pitching now wrong?

Nobody's denying that good pitching in the postseason is crucial. The '88 Dodgers won it all practically without an offense. But you also need a healthy dose of luck, and a good offense sure doesn't hurt either. And let's remember that during the regular season, the Sox were 3rd in the AL in ERA, but they led the majors in runs scored.

WS Game 3

Hey, how 'bout that Cardinals baserunning, eh? I heard/read about half a dozen times yesterday that St. Louis was really going to "put pressure on the Sox defense" with their running around the diamond. Instead, they ended up killing two rallies. Three cheers for small ball!

In fairness, one should remember that Suppan is a pitcher, and Walker testing Manny's arm in the first is a defensible gamble considering that Reggie Sanders, hitless so far in the World Series, was on deck. Still, nothing kills an inning like a baserunning error.

I'm surprised Bill Simmons hasn't come out with the official rating on the unintentional comedy (UIC) scale for pitchers running the basepaths. Possibly the funniest moment in Game 1 came in the 8th inning when Cards' pitcher Jason Marquis ran for Mike Matheny. Cedeno hit a single to right field, seemingly a prime opportunity for the runner on first to take third base. Instead, Marquis stumbled badly and finished the play clinging to second base like a drunk on a lightpole. Tim McCarver, trying to keep a straight face, intoned: "That's the risk you take when you pinch-run a pitcher." Yeah. You never know if they'll be able to successfully run 90 feet in a straight line.

Speaking of Simmons, he had the best line today from the Game 3 coverage in his brilliant analysis of Tony LaRussa, which he concludes with:

And [LaRussa]'s firmly entrenched in that Brett Favre Zone, where the announcers are so busy paying homage to him for three hours, they don't even notice when he screws up.

And more props to Simmons for this mea culpa:

Reason No. 435 why I wouldn't make a good manager: I would have benched Mark Bellhorn before Game 5. Now he's a possible candidate for World Series MVP.

Simmons, of course, is one of about a thousand "experts" who wanted to bench Bellhorn, but he's the only one man enough to admit it now.

However, I did object to Simmons' "Win it for Grady Little...he deserves a normal life again" quote towards the beginning of his column, seeing as how Simmons has done as much as anyone over the past year to crucify Grady (with what, let us remember, is still a second-guess, despite being officially canonized into the Hall of Conventional Wisdom today) and dredge up the memory of that decision over and over and over. Seems like a more magnanimous gesture would be to forgive these guys for past transgressions before your team is right on the brink of finally winning it all.

I don't believe that follows

Snap Judgment is a new espn.com feature this year in which a panel "experts" take a look at the NFL QBs' performances from the day before. It's not bad, but being, as so many espn.com features are, founded on a premise of second-guessing, I anticipate much fodder from this column for SRAM.

A couple of idiotic comments from Patrick Hruby were the most "outstanding" features of today's Snap Judgment; his theme seemed to be complete non-sequiters. For example, when asked if Michael Vick was overrated, or if the Falcons should just move him to running back, Hruby responds:

Move Vick to running back? Great idea -- that is, so long as you're jonesing for the Matt Schaub Era to get under way. And if that's the case, well, recall that certain high-ranking government officials were slam-dunk sure that grateful Iraqis would greet American military forces with flowers and chocolates.

Huh? Where the heck did that come from? Can I grind that axe for you any more, Patrick?

The next question was, "How far is Chad Pennington behind Tom Brady?"

Hruby: Pete Sampras was once asked about the difference between him and one-time rival Pat Rafter. His reply? "About 10 Grand Slams." So there's my answer on Pennington-Brady: About two Super Bowls.

This is a non-sequiter of a different sort, and perhaps not quite as obvious as the last one, assuming there are people out there stupid enough to think that Sampras' quote actually has any bearing whatsoever on the respective merits of Pennington and Brady.

But for the sake of explicitness, I will go ahead and point out that tennis is an individual sport, whereas in football there are about 47 other guys who have some say in how far a team goes. Like I say, an obvious point, but not a day goes by without some moronic reporter forgetting this basic fact in his zeal to crown Athlete A over Athlete B in the pantheon of all-time greats.

Hruby concludes his sterling performance in today's discussion by pronouncing himself unable to name a single QB (besides the Untouchable Brady, of course) whom he would rather have in the last two minutes than Byron Leftwich. Yes, I'm serious. Look it up. Major Day-After Syndrome stuff.

(Other panel members were, however, able to dig deep and come up with such obscure candidates as McNabb, Favre, McNair, Culpepper, and, grudgingly, the un-PC Peyton Manning.)

The Day-After Syndrome

One of sports reporters' (and sports fans; I'm not sure what the difference is, anyway) most predictable tendencies is their penchant for making the most recent game more important than pretty much all other history put together. And there's no better or more consistent example of this tendency than the Daily Bandwagon--er, Quickie. Here are some excerpts from today's column, which is highly typical:

As an early Jags bandwagoneer the first time around (and, um, among the first off), I'm happy to climb back aboard after a textbook "prove-it" win, upending the Colts at Indy thanks to yet another "cardiac Cats" thriller. Here's a slogan to throw at doubters: First place is first place.

Although Shanoff is famous for making disastrous predictions and then writing the very next day as if nothing had happened, his most recent prognostications have gotten so bad that even he has been forced to acknowledge them (see "The ALCS is over," below). But now he's back on with the Jags! For sure!

Prove-It Game (... or Not): Between two rising teams, NYG proved that 4-1 was a facade, but DET proved they're for real (3-0 on road).

Remember the rule: The most recent game is worth more than all the other previous games put together. The Giants lost yesterday, so they stink. That 4-1 record they compiled the first six weeks? A "facade."

Vick's Impotence: Who isn't ready to finally declare the West Coast offense the sorriest waste of Vick's talent (7/21, 2 INT).

I have a feeling I'm going to get pretty tired of pointing this out, but what was the offense run by Steve Young, only the greatest running QB in the history of the game? Oh yeah, it was the West Coast. I once heard Steve say that you score touchdowns by making plays, but you win games (and championships) by running an offense. All these critics of Vick-as-West-Coast-QB have yet to actually propose an offensive scheme. What do they want? The wishbone? Sandlot? "Okay, everybody go out. I'll just start to run after the 3-mississippi rush."

A brief note on the World Series. Opinion in the press seems to be split over whether or not the Series will come back to Fenway. Hello? Y'all might remember that both LCS' started out with a 2-0 lead for the home team, and both ended up going 7 games. It's likely that the St. Louis pessimists are looking at the Game 3 matchup (Martinez vs. Suppan) and proclaiming a blowout. But look at their respective postseason stats:

Martinez (1-1, 5.40 ERA)
Suppan (2-1, 2.84 ERA)

If you erased the last names, which side would you bet on?

Red Sox Nation believed? Don't think so.

Of course, now that the Sox have pulled off the greatest series comeback of all time, and given sports fans around the world their happiest day, everyone in Red Sox Nation is saying that they "believed." (I should make clear here that I never believed. Never. I'm still not sure I believe it.)

Well, let's go back to the Sox' deepest, darkest hour--Game 3 last Saturday--and consult the words on that day of the "unofficial spokesman" for Red Sox nation, Bill Simmons. We'll pick up the commentary in the 3rd inning:

When you're headed into a must-win game, most managers come up with some sort of emergency plan ahead of time, just in case their starter doesn't have it. Like any rational Sox fan, we assumed that Terry Francona's plan was, "I'll start Arroyo, but if he's struggling early, I'll go right to Derek Lowe or Tim Wakefield. I can't take any chances tonight."

Nope.

Here was Francona's plan: "If Arroyo doesn't have it, but the game is still close, I'm going to bring in the worst reliever in my bullpen. If that guy doesn't have it, I'm bringing in the second-worst reliever in my bullpen. And if that guy doesn't have it, and we're way behind, that's when I'll bring in Lowe or Wakefield. By the way, I'm doing this because I'm really hoping to get fired next week."

Francona eventually did bring in Wakefield, and he sure was lights-out, wasn't he? A mere 5 runs in 3.1 innings. And look, at least they had someone to start Game 4, as Lowe put in 5.1 decent innings (3 runs). Back to Bill:

5. Torre's so good - he's the anti-Francona
Wrote that one in the bottom of the third, when Torre pulled the plug on Brown once they went up 6-4, bringing in Javy Vazquez. And that's the difference between Torre and Francona -- he acts instead of reacts. He knew Brown was struggling. He didn't want to send him back out there for a few more hits, then bring Vazquez in the middle of an inning (which is what Francona would have done -- although he would have chosen Felix Heredia instead). So Torre said, "Screw it, I've seen enough, let's see what Vazquez can do starting off the third."

And it wasn't like Vazquez was fantastic or anything -- the Sox nearly knocked him out in the third before he settled down in the middle innings. He also didn't pitch worse than Brown would have pitched. Regardless, that's why Torre has four rings. He doesn't react. He acts. That's what a manager is supposed to do.

Not sure what to make of this, since Simmons does admit that Vazquez didn't actually do that well (4 runs in 4 innings). But Torre's nonetheless a genius for putting in Vazquez there because (a) he has 4 rings, and (b) he's not Francona. Okay, maybe we'll agree to disagree on the Game 3 move, but the Brown-to-Vazquez move in Game 7 surely wasn't too brilliant.

(Look, I enjoy Simmons as much as anyone, but once he gets a prejudice against a coach (or a pitcher, or a quarterback), it's all over.)

9. A-Rod -- $15 million
That was after A-Rod hit his second double, giving him two doubles and a homer on the night. And we were still in the fifth. I just wanted to remind myself how the Sox were $15 million away from getting A-Rod last winter, but chose to wait until spring training to try and close the deal, allowing the Yanks to sneak through the back door. Whether he would have fit in with the team of self-proclaimed idiots, we will never know. It just seemed interesting that he was the guy hammering the nail in the coffin last night.

Everybody off the bandwagon!

(By the way, I was grasping for straws at this point -- it seemed much easier to rationalize that a potential sweep was Francona's fault or Schilling's ankle's fault when the reality was that the Yankees were laying the SMACK down. And not just in Game 3. For the whole series. You have to hand it to them.)

The great thing about Simmons, though, is that he's not afraid to occasionally pull out the old "The lesson, as always? I'm an idiot."

And how about that faith shown in the last few paragraphs:

14. Nov. 2 -- don't think so.That's the return date on my airplane ticket. Something tells me I'll be catching an earlier flight back to Los Angeles.

15. We aren't just leaving the game early -- we're fleeing a crime scene. Wrote that on my way out, right after Bernie Williams' two-run double to make it 16-6. One of those rare moments when an entire crowd gets up and leaves -- not even a "Hey, should we go?" shrug to be seen. I never thought I'd leave a Red Sox-Yankees playoff game in the seventh inning. But I did. Everyone did. We had to get out of there. It was practically a stampede.

16. T-shirt stop = silver lining Heading to the subway after the game, I bought two T-shirts from sidewalk vendors to make myself feel better.... I'm going to break them both out this winter in California. Frequently.

While I'm recovering from another Red Sox season that fell short.

Wait a minute. I thought Sox fans would never leave a playoff game early. (That's what they claimed after Game 7, anyway, when they saw the Yankee fans leaving early.)

Klapisch: I want a scapegoat!

Bob Klapsich writes a post-series analysis for the Yankees, and demands someone to step forward and take the blame: "One by one, the Yankees voiced their regret, although not one of them took responsibility."

Just like in politics; whenever a scandal or tragedy of some kind occurs, Washington appeases the peasantry by (a) firing someone and (b) passing a new law increasing regulations. Does Klapisch really think that the series collapse is the responsibility of ONE guy? Maybe not, but he does the best he can to find the scapegoat. The above quote continues:

Not Alex Rodriguez, who closed out the series going 2-for-17. Not Gary Sheffield, who was 1-for-17 after being quoted calling the Red Sox "a walking disaster." Not Kevin Brown or Javier Vazquez, who combined to put the Yankees in a 6-0 crisis in the second inning in Game 7.

As SRAM pointed out yesterday, it's a 7-game series, and both A-Rod and Shef out-hit The Winner during said series. The Yanks would have been swept if the whole team had hit like their lead-off man. But of course Jeter is untouchable.

Klapisch spends most of the rest of the column torching Torre, including this model of sports reporter second-guessing:

Later, in the 13th inning [of Game 5], the Yankees were strangely passive after Sheffield reached base on a strikeout-passed ball. Torre never gave Sheffield the chance to take advantage of Jason Varitek's unfamiliarity with Tim Wakefield's knuckleball. Had Sheffield stolen second, instead of being erased on Matsui's subsequent fielder's choice, he might've been on third and scored on another Varitek passed ball later in the inning.

Yes, and Sheffield might have been caught stealing, too. After all, the man was an impressive 5-for-11 in stolen bases during the season. Somebody give Klapisch a clipboard!

The Happiest Day

It's hard to be a critic on this, the happiest day in the history of sports. A collection of thoughts from the ridiculously copious coverage of Game 7:

- Buster Olney, target of SRAM's wrath yesterday, manned the chat post last night on espn.com, and was notably short on prediction and speculation. However, it should be noted that he was panning Brown's stuff after just 6 pitches. Good call. Although Harold Reynolds on Baseball Tonacht said afterwards he thought Brown had "good stuff, bad location." Okay, guys.

- That same chat had a few users advocating small ball in the first inning. Because, after all, you gotta get a lead to prevent Rivera from coming in. That's right, Moneyball is anti-getting-a-lead. The result of the Sox' brief small ball experiment: "Yeah, Damon steals second!" "Crap, Damon gets thrown out at home." With 1 out, mind you. A true Moneyball team has Ortiz hitting a 3-run homer with runners on first and second.

- The Daily Quickie admits to eating crow! At last! ("The ALCS is over" after Game 2.) Only about 999 more failed predictions to acknowledge, now. Let's go back to the DQ for last Monday (Oct. 18th) and revel in his Game 4 "analysis":

Delusion of "moral victory": Difference between "didn't lose" and "won." (Not that you could tell from Red Sox celebration.) Boston fans can't seriously "Believe" there's a chance, can they?

Spectre of Schill for Game 6: He's more valuable as a mind-game than for what he could actually do on the mound ...

- The whole world is bagging on ARod and Sheffield's AWOL offense over the last 4 games. No doubt, that was a killer, but it's a 7-game series, so let's look at some batting averages over the whole series:

Jeter: .200
Rodriguez: .258
Sheffield: .333

Good to see that His Jeterness at least made it up to the Mendoza line with his clutch play.

- Speaking of The Winner, one of the best lines of all Game 7 coverage came from Jim Caple:

"It's upsetting to lose,'' Derek Jeter said. "But in terms of being the first team to lose after being up 3-0, I couldn't care less.''

Don't worry, Derek. After a winter of listening to Yankees fans rip you for the collapse, you will.

Buster Olney does some backseat driving

Kudos to Buster Olney, author of The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, for his willingness to come out and publish his analysis of the Yankees-Red Sox game as it was happening. Even so, it serves as a great example of what happens when sports reporters take their own turn in the driver's seat.

For example, his post in the second inning:

37 pitches so far for Lieber, 37 mistakes in this series for Bellhorn. Why he's playing is inexplicable, at this point ... The guy was getting himself out in that at-bat, leaning into the pitch and jamming himself ...

Expert analysis of the guy who won the game for the Sox in his next at-bat with a 3-run homer. Olney, of course, was not the only critic of Bellhorn; as Schilling snidely remarked after the game, all the Boston "experts" were saying he shouldn't even be in, too.

And don't think I'm leaving him off the hook on the Lieber comment, either. Olney obsessed over Lieber's pitch count all game long. In the fourth inning he says:

Lieber at 75 pitches, and now, down 4-0, Torre has an interesting decision. He's probably got another inning, but after that, Torre will need relief. Do you use any of your prime guys to keep the game close...[etc. etc.]

In the fifth:

Lieber starting to get the ball up in the strike zone, based on those swings in that inning. He's at 85 pitches and entering his danger zone. Yankees should start the sixth with somebody warming up.

In the sixth:

Lieber at 107 pitches, and he's retired 7 straight batters. I bet that given the condition of Joe's bullpen, he'll send him out for the seventh and go batter to batter the rest of the way...

In the seventh:

[Nothing about Lieber]

In the eighth:

[Nothing again! Hmm...]

Lieber, of course, made it into the eighth. However, Olney did have some comments about Schilling in the eighth:

Wow -- I am absolutely shocked that Schilling is being yanked out of this game ... The way he finished? Jeez ... A reverse Grady ... maybe. We'll see.

Hey Buster, I'm pretty sure that Francona did not say after the 7th, "We're pulling Schilling now--maybe." The sports pundits are still obsessed over Grady. As it turns out, Schilling himself told Fox after the game that he was definitely done after the 7th. Olney also tried the old "Hey--only 100 pitches!" angle, but y'all may remember that Schilling's arm isn't the problem here--it's that blood-soaked ankle.

Olney always has some digs to get at the Moneyball guys (maybe he's jealous of Michael Lewis making so much more than he does), and he does tonight in the 3rd:

I do not understand why the Red Sox wouldn't try to force the issue, especially after seeing Posada's long drive die in the cold.... But the Red Sox play that Moneyball station to station stuff; just not sure if the calculations include 35 degree windchill factor, 36 innings of baseball in three days, huge pressure on the other team.

This would be exactly one inning before Bellhorn's home run with runners on first and second. Has anyone ever been proved wrong in so many different ways by one swing?

I will give Olney huge props, though, for this eighth inning comment:

A-Rod tried to pull a Reggie, '78 World Series, and it didn't work.

He's the only reporter I know of who thought of this highly apt comparison. Perhaps if the umps had huddled together back in those days like they do now, the Dodgers wouldn't have been jobbed out of that Series.

Philosophy: Sports Reporters as Critics

Occasionally I will post something that outlines some guiding philosophy for the blog, so that readers know where I'm coming from. Why should you care where I'm coming from? Why should I even answer that?!! If you don't care, then you wouldn't read it anyway!

One of my biggest pet peeves with sports reporters is their constant use of omniscient hindsight to criticize coaches, managers, and players for making certain decisions which turned out to be not-so-good. I believe that this dishonest practice has worsened in the Internet and talk radio age of hyper-analysis. Now, of course we all reserve the right to criticize, analyze, and rehash after the fact. But I submit there are two important tenets that we must keep in mind as we do so:

1. The critic must maintain at least a pose of humility, knowing that it is easy to say things after the fact, but the coach or athlete who made the decision did not have the benefit of our current knowledge.

2. The critic must subject himself to the same scrutiny for his decisions (or predictions) as that which he imposes on the coaches and athletes.

#1 should be fairly obvious, but I feel it is being forgotten today. Reporters do not have a proper appreciation for the position of the coach who has to make a decision right here and right now. They think to themselves, "Oh yeah, I totally thought that he should have put in John Doe at that time," and they think that their vague recollection amounts to a decision. Even, "I told my friend Joe that they should have done that at the time!" does not cut it with me. To me, the only way you can truly argue that you would have made a certain decision at a certain time is if you write it down and publish it right then. That is the touchstone.

Now, I have no problem with reporters saying, even after the fact, "It would seem that Coach Smith in situation X would do Y, but he evidently decided not to because of Z" or something along those lines. But to say, after the fact, "Coach Smith is a moron because clearly you have to do X in this situation" shows the reporter (or commentator, even) to be a blowhard who doesn't have the bergertis to make the decision himself or the intellectual honesty to acknowledge the opposing viewpoint.

#2 is also important because it establishes the reporter's bona-fides. If a reporter really can show himself to be a gifted prognosticator, then maybe he really is in a position to criticize. However, we don't know if any of these guys really are gifted or not, because no one ever follows up on their predictions and preseason forecasts. They criticize all day long, but expect not to be held accountable. No more! This blog will try to keep track of reporters' predictions, and will take take delight proving them to be wrong time after time.

Welcome to the blog

Welcome to the Sports Reporters Are Morons blog. As you might guess, I am not a sports reporter, but as fans of logic will tell you, that does not mean that I am not a moron, either. For years I have gotten more and more fed up with the degrading quality of sports reporting along with the simultaneous rise in sports reporters' arrogance. Nowadays they think they can shape the direction of the story, or they can create their own "story" out of essentially thin air, or that they themselves are the story. They think they can critique decisions with the benefit of hindsight without being held responsible for their own prognostications or analysis. And some of them (not all, certainly, but some) have the writing standards of a high school newspaper.

To which I say, enough! This blog will finally hold sports reporters accountable for the idiotic things that they say! And it should be a lot of fun.