FIRE JOE MORGAN: Eckstein Round-Up

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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

 

Eckstein Round-Up

It's been several days since America's Favorite Little Scamp singlehandedly beat the Tigers for the World Series title, not only going 23-22 (he tripled twice in a single at-bat in Game Two) with sixteen doubles, but also throwing three consecutive no-hitters in Games 3-5, despite staying at the stadium late every night to help the concessions crew clean up the grandstands and tutoring his little brother in pre-calc.

In case any of you are wondering, we here at FJM do not hate David Eckstein. What we hate is bad sports journalism, and there has been a lot of it recently. Apparently, nothing brings out the cliche machines faster than a small man who plays sports.

David Eckstein started the World Series 0-11. Did anyone hear anything about how bad Eck was in the clutch? No. No one heard that. If Alex Rodriguez had an 0-11 slump in three playoff games, the hand-wringing and typewriter pounding would have been deafening. How do I know this? Because ARod did do that, and that did happen.

The point is, ARod is a large human, who makes a lot of money. Eck is a small human, who makes less money. Their career performances during the regular season and during the playoffs indicate beyond a shadow of a fraction of a smidgeon of a blorgtion of a flernson of a doubt that Alex Rodriguez is the better player by like eleven standard deviations. And yet: no one writes anything good about ARod these days, and everyone writes good things about Eckstein.

Does no one in the world remember the 2000 ALCS, when ARod was 9-22 with 2HR and put up this line: .409/.480/.773? Does anyone realize that in the last 2 series Eck played in before the NLCS he put up a scrappy little 6-35 with 6 singles? Does anyone care?

Well, we do. Because people love to attack big rich guys, and love to praise small little scrappy guys, no matter what the actual facts of their performances tell us. To wit, here's a quote from former Eckstein coach Joe Maddon, from yet another paean to a little man's big heart. Read the last sentence of the quote like seven times in a row, and try to figure out how this is possible.

"I've always said David was the smartest guy on the field every night, and that included both coaching staffs," Maddon said Friday. "And I've never seen the guy have a bad day. Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you."

I don't trust that you all read that seven times in a row, so:

Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.
Even if he goes 0-for-4 and makes three errors, he helps you.


No. No he does not. He does not help you. He hurts you. Anyone who does this in a game hurts you, no matter whether he is 5'7" 165, or 6'4" 230.

I'm sure David Eckstein is an awesome dude. I actually do admire his ability to hang in a league where everyone is bigger than he is. I get the human interest angle. I get it. I really do. Nice work, Eck.

But David Eckstein is not great at baseball. He is almost like the definition of average at baseball. And people insist on saying otherwise, even when they admit that he is not that good at baseball.

The baseball season is over, now, and although we have a Hot Stove to look forward to, we here at FJM always lament the final days of October, because it's just not as much fun to post dumb things that Michael Irvin says about the Packers, or make jokes about Barry Melrose's mullet. So, we'll keep posting whenever we can, but as a final WS/Eckstein round-up, and to celebrate the end of a great year, here are my favorite responses to the Eckstein Height and Weight Contest. Thanks to all of you who wrote in -- more than 500 of you -- and thanks for being the snarkiest and most consistently amusing reader base a bunch of nerds could ever ask for.

Again, the questions:

1. How tall is David Eckstein?
2. How much does he weigh?

Joe:

1. How tall is David Eckstein?
Nelson De La Rosa plus two inches.

2. How much does he weigh?
Trick question, David Eckstein does not weight anything. He is composed completely of toughness and grittiness and those have zero weight.

Bob K:

All I *know* for sure is that he plays like he's 7'8" and 425 lbs.

Jeff:

170 cm, 75kg!
metric!
boo-yeah!
i have nothing better to do!

Alex:

Weight: As big as a 15 year old high school chess club president with the arm strength of the president's 9-year-old sister, but the minute you begin to doubt him, you're already out.

Height: Shorter than a pesky annoying toddler, but as soon as you look at Eckstein as an easy out he somehow makes contact with the ball and uses his peskiness to get the centerfielder to trip on wet grass, letting the ball land for a double.

Now, if you'll excuse me I need to get back to my math homework, whereby I calculate everything using only measurements of heart and soul combined with a little hustle. I have an F so far in the class, but that's because the teacher is a geek who thinks numbers are important.

Invisible200:

1. 5.515158362e-17 parsecs
2. 7.484274105e-8 teragrams

RocketRoss:

He was only 3'8'' and weighed 49 lbs when he was drafted by the Red Sox, but through grit, hustle, heart, scrappiness, and white-man blue-collar work ethic, he outhustled and outgrinded his genetic code and grew to the height of 5'7'' and the weight of 165 lbs. Sadly, no amount of grit and hustle could undo his terrible skin condition.

D K:

Height: Why the fuck does it matter? The bastard's got GRIT IN HIS FUCKING DNA.
Weight: Who fucking cares? He's the toughest player I've ever seen in uniform. THAT'S ALL THAT MATTERS.

Jeff:

1. How tall is David Eckstein?
Scraptastic!!!

2. How much does he weigh?
Translucent!

John:

1. 6'5"
2. 270

I may be confusing him with Frank Thomas. But how many World Series MVPs does the Big Hurt have? Exactly.

Anthony:

David Eckstein's height is: Clutch
His weight is: Hustle

Evan:

How tall is Eckstein? As tall as his heart is invaluable to the success of all teams everywhere.
How much does he weigh? He’s too feisty to get onto a scale.

Joe:

His hustle is 11 feet tall, and his heart weighs 2,461 lbs.

Also, this year his GORP (Grit over replacement player) was an astounding 193.8!

Avinash:

1. Doesn't matter
2. Doesn't matter

When you want to know the size of his heart, then we'll talk.

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