Schadenfreude, the gift that keeps on giving. The Red Sox aren’t going to the World Series, and all’s well with the world. I don’t care who wins the damn thing, as long as Boston didn’t.
The Tampa Bay Rays are a good, heartwarming story, for sure. With all the talk the past several years about how the “small market” teams have no chance to compete against the financial behemoth Yankees, “Sawx,” Cubs and Angels, it’s refreshing to see a team with a collective payroll lower than A-Rod’s annual salary win the AL East, and then make it to the World Series. Clearly one of the feel-good stories of the year, and a team worth rooting for, if anyone’s so inclined.
But that’s not why I was rooting for them to win the ALCS. My main concern was that the odious Boston Red Sox NOT make it, and the Rays, being the last obstacle in their path, were the obvious favorite for my affections. My preference for true poetic justice would have been that my semi-hometown “Los Angeles” Angels of Anaheim be the authors of Boston’s postseason demise, but I’ll take the ultimate result any way I can get it. Thanks to the Rays’ improbable heroics, I’ll be spared the insufferable, incessant, self-congratulatory drivel from the troglodyte denizens of “Red Sox Nation” this offseason.
I don’t hate the players, mind you — except maybe that garrulous loudmouth Kurt Schilling, who apparently has no unexpressed thoughts (as Winston Churchill famously said of an overbearing woman who was boring him at a party). I certainly don’t hate Terry Francona, who’s quick to praise his players (and opponents) publicly, and keeps any negativity private. Heck, I even find it hard to hate that super “stat nerd” Harvard boy wonder, Theo Epstein, who’s proved that it’s possible to make SMART decisions with a huge payroll — unlike his Yankee counterpart. But that damned obnoxious effusively self-obsessed “Nation” was badly in need of a comeuppance, and got it.
It was a close thing, mind you. Who’d have thought that, down 7-0 in the bottom of the 7th in the close-out fifth game of the ALCS, the Sox would not only come back to stave off elimination, but win the next two and almost pull off the most stunning postseason comeback since — well, since they made history by coming back from an 0-3 deficit to stun the Yankees in 2004, en route to their first World Series championship in the post-Curse of the Bambino era? How can anyone hate on a team with that kind of mental toughness?
We’ll never know, but I wonder if they might have pulled off the comeback — or, even, might not have needed one — had they not traded mercurial Manny Ramirez. Sure, he had a bit of an attitude problem when he wasn’t offered the “respect” (pro athlete slang for value and length of contract) that he felt he was due, but he sure can pound the poop out of a baseball, can’t he? The insult to the Sox’s injury was that they not only let him go for next to nothing, but that they actually paid most of his salary as he enriched the McCourts’ coffers and carried the Dodgers to more postseason glory than they’d had in 20 years.
I was one of many who felt the Dodgers’ late-season acquisition of ManRam was ill-advised, given his well-documented attitude problems and his questionable approach to anything that doesn’t involve batting. On the other hand, looking back, he couldn’t have been a worse clubhouse influence than that notoriously saturnine red-ass, Jeff Kent, whose mere presence in the dugout sucked out all the oxygen and stifled the performance of the Dodgers’ young talent. When Kent went on the injured list, and Manny became the unquestioned man, the Dodgers finally started playing with energy, enthusiasm and success. Not to mention, drawing thousands more fans per game, and selling thousands more dollars worth of memorabilia.
Meanwhile, what about my Angels? Another year; another outstanding regular season; another pathetic postseason rollover to their Kryptonite, the Red Sox. Well, at least they did manage to win one game this time. It was a team loss, to be sure, but I can’t help but wonder whether Manager Mike Scioscia’s insistence on old-school “small ball” didn’t lose it for them — again. Not that bunting, suicide squeezes and the old hit-and-run don’t have their place, but in the end, statistically, those ploys don’t usually produce a lot of runs. And even if they’re successful, squeeze plays and sacrifices are just taking the bats out of the players’ hands and giving outs to the other team.
Some people justify Scioscia’s stubborn clinging to such antediluvian tactics by pointing out that they (allegedly) worked when the Angels won the whole thing in 2002. The simple answer is that no, they didn’t. A major reason the Angels won in 2002 is that their opponents, the Giants, unlike the Red Sox, could be relied on to self-destruct in a 7-game series, and did. More significantly, the Angels won because Scioscia let people like Scott Spiezio actually try to hit, and they responded with surprise home runs and extra-base hits. The Angels also won that series with solid defense, stalwart pitching, a rookie phenom lights-out closer named Francisco Rodriguez, and lots and lots of timely hitting. They DID NOT win it with “small ball.”
Scioscia’s still a fine manager. It’s not as if the Angels win 90-plus games every year by just rolling out the baseballs. How many years have we bemoaned the Angels’ refusal to disturb payroll sanity by signing a slugger who could protect Vladimir Guerrero? That they’ve been so successful without power hitting surely owes a little something to Scioscia’s managerial skills.
But this year, they broke the bank and traded for Marl Texeira. Nonetheless, Scioscia’s team STILL came up short. He’s proved that he can lose to the Sox in the playoffs with or without another solid bat. And that, too, has to be laid at his doorstep. I’d like to see the stats that he constantly claims prove the efficacy of his pantywaist approach to offense. I’ll bet that the stats actually prove just the opposite.
Compare Scioscia to the coach of the moment, Rays’ Manager Joe Maddon, who was one of the Angels’ coaches under Scioscia during that magical 2002 season. Friend of Mike though he may be, Maddon absolutely eschews the pitty-pat little things that give “traditionalists” wet dreams, believing that it’s better to let hitters hit and try to create runs, rather than give away outs to score a single run — at best. That’s my kind of attitude.
Mind you, as The Sportsgod accurately observed, Maddon and the Rays came pretty close to an historic meltdown against the Red Sox doing it their way. And they may well return to the dustbin of baseball history as quickly as they’ve ascended to their current position, no matter what Maddon’s baseball “philosophy” is, if only because they won’t be able to keep that team underpaid and together. Meanwhile, while the Angels are likely to surely going to keep cranking out those 90-win seasons for a long time — and, if they can just manage to avoid the Sox in the first round, maybe enjoy some postseason success, to boot. But, as of the end of the ALCS, “small-ball” lovers could kiss Mr. Maddon’s ample behind.
Well, except for when his hitters weren’t hitting, and he needed his team to scratch out runs to achieve its first (and, as it turned out, only) win of the World Series. Well, consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, I suppose.
Speaking of the Series, weren’t the Rays supposed to walk all over the Phillies because, after all, they come from the “real” Major League, while the Phillies represent the best that Triple A has to offer? At least, that’s what The Sportsgod keeps telling us. Unfortunately, the teams had to go and ruin his beautiful theory by actually playing the games.
The fact is that in baseball, maybe more than in any other major team sport, the better team (and league) may prove itself so over the course of an entire season, but anybody can beat anybody else in a short series — and “short” includes a 7-gamer.
But even aside from that glaringly obvious fact, the mere happenstance that a team has emerged as the best in a superior league doesn’t make it a lock to win against the best an inferior league has to offer. I think that Arizona, the Cards, and maybe now the Phillies have demonstrated that fallacy in the past several seasons. For that matter, there’s no question that the NBA East is overall inferior to the West, but we’ve still seen the Pistons, Miami, and most recently the Celtics win the NBA championship in the past several years. Just remember, Sportgod, when you assume, you make an “ass” of “u” and “me.”
Speaking of assumptions that don’t necessarily pan out, what about the common wisdom that the only pitchers who can shine in postseason play are power pitchers? Maybe someone should have sent that memo to Cole Hamels, who, while not exactly a pus-thrower, sure relies on control more than velocity. Are they going to withhold his World Series MVP award until he clocks at least 96 mph on the radar gun?
I know it’s a bit late, but speaking of schadenfreude, how about a shout-out to Becky Hammon, who led her San Antonio Silver Stars team to the WNBA Finals – and, way more importantly, past the L.A. Sparks in the process?
You remember Ms. Hammon, don’t you? The whipping-girl of red-blooded U.S. patriots everywhere, who followed her Olympic dream by playing for Russia (where she’s a star) after Team USA didn’t even invite her to try out. I was reminded of her just the other day, when I heard Chris Kaman interviewed on local sports talk radio. That’s the same Chris Kaman who got zero criticism at all for parlaying his grandparents’ German ancestry into a spot on the German team for those same Olympic Games. The disparate treatment accorded those two athletes was so palpable I could feel it, touch it, and taste it.
Anyway, the injustice of the rude and boorish treatment Ms. Hammon had to endure at the hands of her fellow countrywomen gave me what’s basically the only rooting interest I’ve ever had in a WNBA playoff series, when her San Antonio whatchamacallits played our own L.A. Sparks in the WNBA Western Conference Finals — and beat them in the deciding game, with Ms. Hammon administering the coup de grace. For some reason having nothing to do with any new-found love for the women’s game, it absolutely warmed the cockles of my heart (whatever “cockles” are) to see Ms. Hammon put the boot in the collective ass of the Sparks, who were led by Lisa Leslie and Candace Parker, who’d been ringleaders of the orchestrated Olympic snubbing. All she did in the final game was score 35 points, including 4 crucial free throws late, to lead her team to a 76-72 win. There is some justice in the world.
Just for the record, let me confess that I’ve never particularly liked Ms. Leslie, although she’s clearly one of the top women ever to play the game. Not that I know her. She may be an entirely delightful person in private. But her public persona as just another egotistical athlete with an hypertrophied sense of entitlement is something I – and sports – can do without.
My disdain for her started when she was in high school at Morningside High, and scored 101 points in the FIRST HALF against a hopelessly overmatched opponent. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had her coach beg the other team to keep playing, so that she could set a record — utterly oblivious to the humiliation the girls on the other team must have been feeling. The opponents, appropriately, took umbrage and walked off the floor, rather than submit to even more humiliation.
It was that egoistic sense of entitlement, the belief that the opposing players should have been proud to participate in her burnishing her resume at their expense, that made me realize that not all insufferable athletes are men. There’s plenty of it to go around, and the disease knows no limitations of gender or race — or of the popularity the athlete’s sport enjoys.
By the way, just how drunk and obnoxious do you have to be before you’re booted out of a Hooters restaurant? Apparently, as drunk as John Daly, who allegedly was so s-faced that he passed out at one in North Carolina, and was taken into custody by the local constabulary after EMTs revived him. Remind me again why this train wreck of a bad example of a circus freak is so popular with so many golf fans, while unquestionably better golfers, of better character, far more deserving of their support and far more generous in respecting their adulation, are ignored.
I guess it’s all part of the reality televisionization of the country, which makes William Hung-types more popular than people with actual talent. Apparently there’s now no distinction at all among fame, popularity, and notoriety.
I’m not a big moralist, and the public can decide to love anyone nit wants to. But it’s a bit of a shame that guys who substitute boundless gluttonous appetite, unrelenting dedication to debilitating addictive behavior, and boorishness for genuine personality are lionized by the great unwashed, while their betters struggle in obscurity. Reminds me of that line by “The Wolf” in “Pulp Fiction” that just because you ARE a character doesn’t mean you have character. Not any more, apparently.
So, Ty Willingham has finally been axed at U-Dub. Can’t have been a surprise. No one who loses that many games at a high-profile school with lots of impatient, rich boosters is safe if he can’t put up the W’s. Especially if he’s as much of a, well, for want of a better term, Karl Dorrell, as Willingham is.
I don’t know if he’s a good coach, though his impressive record at perennial loser Stanford suggests he’s got something in the tank. Stanford’s never done as well since he left, has it? But there’s no question that he’s not much of a recruiter, and his refusal to compromise on bad behavior even by star athletes surely doesn’t help in that department. Guys who quickly turn around formerly high-profile programs tend to have either looser standards or more charismatic personalities than Mr. W — or both. Yeah, Nick Saban isn’t exactly Mr. Charm School, but one suspects his ethical standards are low enough to compensate.
Nonetheless, I have to agree with the L.A. Times’s Chris Dufresne and foxsports.com’s Jason Whitlock that his disastrous record in Seattle in no way retroactively justifies the way he was hosed by Notre Dame. And please don’t tell me that the Domers’ impatience with Willingham didn’t have a lot to do with how much melanin he has in his skin pigmentation. They gave Gerry Faust 5 years, and they gave Bob Davie 5 years. Both of them recruited better than Willingham, and their records sucked worse. They not only couldn’t wait to give Willingham’s successor, whom Whitlock cleverly dubbed “The Great Weis Hope,” 5 years, and they didn’t ride him out of town on a rail when he went 3-9 last season, against a less-than-overwhelming schedule. And, although Caucasian, Weis is about as arrogant and obnoxious as it gets.
I believe ND honks when they say the premature rug-yanking had nothing to do with race about as much as I believe the now-resigned head of the San Bernardino County Republican Women’s group that sent out that toxic anti-Obama mailer with the fake “Obama Food Stamp” when she says that they just happened to choose fried chicken, watermelon, ribs and Kool-Aid as the foods to be pictured, without even the slightest idea that many people associate them with African-Americans.
For coaches, it’s still like the early days of sports integration, where it was obvious that unless an African-American athlete was markedly better than his Caucasian counterparts, the Caucasian got the benefit of the doubt every single time. The issue isn’t whether Willingham was better than Faust, Davie or Weis. He may well not have been. The issue is that those three were given every chance to prove (or, at least in the cases of Faust and Davie, to “disprove”) themselves, while Willingham wasn’t. His flopperoo at U-Dub doesn’t change that fact.
It’s obviously way too early to make judgments or predictions, and I certainly don’t wish Greg Oden ill (except when his team plays the Lakers), but isn’t it starting to seem as if he’s going to be the next Sam Bowie? Bowie had some skills, and had he stayed relatively healthy he might have made Portland fans forget that the team drafted him instead of Michael Jordan. Well, maybe not; but he’d probably have had a quite commendable career.
The problem was that Bowie COULDN’T stay healthy, and never came close to fulfilling his promise after a pretty good rookie season. Lest we forget, Bowie had a decent rookie season, averaging 10 points, 8.8 boards and 2.7 blocks per game in 76 games. Unfortunately, he managed to play in just 38, 5, and 20 games, respectively, over the next 3 seasons, while MJ became, well, MJ. He actually played pretty well for a while after he left Portland, and averaged over 70 games in 4 seasons for the Nets after that, but he’ll be forever remembered as Portland’s wasted golden opportunity.
Oden didn’t even make it to his first season, sitting out all 82 games recovering from microfracture knee surgery. Then, in this year’s season-opener against the Lakers, he gave tantalizing hints of what kind of defensive force he could be — Andrew Bynum is still trying to rub off the “Spalding” tattoo on his forehead that Oden gave him — but lasted less than a half before going out with a “mid-lateral” foot sprain. Now, word is that he’ll be out a couple of weeks. Is that going to be his pattern from now on?
Pete Carroll was always a tad jealous of the accolades showered on the offensive genius of Norm Chow when the latter was the Trojans’ offensive coordinator. Whenever anyone talked about how well the offense was run, and especially how well it game-planned and made adjustments, Carroll always had to point out that he himself had a little something-something to do with it. He hasn’t been quite so eager to take credit now that Steve Sarkisian’s running the show, and showing a real inability to make half-time changes, has he? Not surprising, really. USC’s third string still has more talent than just about all the other Pac-10 teams’ starting 22, but it hasn’t always been evident on the field.
What’s the famous adage: “Success has many fathers; failure is an orphan.”? Not that the Trojans have failed in the past few seasons since Chow left, but they’ve certainly underperformed their talent level.
Speaking of Chow, he seems to be doing a creditable job at undermanned UCLA, which probably should be 1-7 instead of 3-5, despite having its top two QBs on the depth chart out all season with injuries. Other Pac-10 teams with similar problems are either winless or pretty well winless. I have to assume that once the Bruins get better athletes — that’s Slick Rick’s department — Chow’s offense will run a lot better.
But what must Chow be thinking about the Titans’ 7-0 start this season? Think he might have had a better record as offensive coordinator had he had the less gifted but more disciplined Kerry Collins at QB instead of Vince Young, who not only has refused since high school to do anything “boring,” like learning playbooks and technique, but who pretty clearly tanked for and passively-aggressively backstabbed Chow? We’ll never know, but I think so.
Please send comments and criticism — especially criticism — to thonglaw@sprynet.com, where it will be dealt with appropriately.
