FJM is a closed forum, but we welcome reader feedback. We're especially interested in corrections of our work, and research (usually number-crunching) that we may not be able to do ourselves. Please check the comments section as well, where we often post readers' opinions, and, less frequently, announce that we were wrong about something.
You can e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach individually.
In FJM Heaven, every writer complains that high-OBP sluggers clog up the basepaths. In FJM Heaven, every article trumpets David Eckstein as an MVP candidate based on his grit, his heart, and the fact that he sleeps in a child's race car bed. In FJM Heaven, A-Rod is a worthless choker, wins matter more than WHIP, "it's not called the Hall of Very Good," and all bloggers live in their mothers' basements.
And in FJM Heaven, HatGuy writes about food for an entire column, every column.
No more candy cane lane? Say it ain't so, Joe! Yankees manager goes too far by banning goodies in the clubhouse
This is just a delight. I mean, I'm not even going to be an asshole for this one. Okay, maybe a little. If Braveheart
-- topical -- were playing for the Yankees in 2008 instead of the underdog Scottish Nationalists in 1305, he’d have climbed on a table in the Yankees clubhouse and delivered a line that would resonate through time: “You can take my life, but you can’t take my Reese's peanut butter cups!”
All of you readers who e-mail me to add the "food metaphors" label on every single post I write, this post is for you. You are legion, you are persistent, and I appreciate every e-mail.
HatGuy, Jesus...he's not even veiling his gustatory fascination with the aforementioned food metaphors anymore. This baseball column is just straight up about food. Think about that. Also, countdown until he mentions ice cream. 5...4...3... Alas, there is no William Wallace on the Yankees and no plans for Mel Gibson to play the brave rebel who leads the team against manager Joe Girardi, who has imposed a reign of health food on his team.
No Mel Gibson joke? You disappoint me, HatGuy. Hell, "sugar tits" even has a food in it. You definitely could have awkwardly shoehorned a dated, unfunny Gibson reference in there. Next time.
No candy in the clubhouse, Girardi has decreed. And no ice cream.
There it is. For the uninitiated, I refer you to what reader Zac once wrote us:
June 28, 2006, Mike Celizic writes "Sox Fans must boo Pedro heartily," and makes a choppy, hot fudge sundae/whipped cream joke:
"If anything else happens — the fans cheering wildly or the commentators congratulating them for booing boisterously or no one taking notice of the occasion at all...[I'd] be as disappointed as I’d be if I set out to construct a hot fudge sundae and discovered I was out of whipped cream."
July 7, 2006, Mike Celizic writes "Not Time for Yankees to Panic" and makes eerily similar whipped cream reference:
"It’s hard to make panic seem banal, but that’s what the Yankees have accomplished over the years... [blahblah] ...Panic should be saved for special occasions. For the Yankees, a day without panic is like a hot fudge sundae without whipped cream."
Yes, HatGuy -- we keep track of food metaphors and similes you made nearly two years ago. That is the kind of people we are. Food metaphor enthusiasts.
It’s not just at Yankee Stadium, either. By Girardi’s orders, stadiums the Yankees will visit this year have been asked not to provide M&Ms, Dove bars, or any other sweet succulence to his Yankees.
Forget FJM Heaven. This is HatGuy Heaven! The Yankees, food, sweet food, creamy food, chocolate, dessert, Yankee stadium, candy, ice cream, Dove bars (ice cream inside candy)! Instead, Girardi wants granola, nuts and dried fruits for his players to snack on. My guess is there won’t even be salt on the nuts.
d:(
(That's a HatGuy frowny-face.)
It makes you wonder why he doesn’t go all the way and ban apple pie and motherhood.
Because he wants his players not to eat junk food? Multi-million-dollar athletes whose bodies are finely-tuned machines designed to perform extraordinary physical tasks on an everyday basis? Yes, this man is Stalin because he doesn't want his players looking like this:
I understand his motivation — promoting healthy choices in all things. But no chocolate? No nougat and caramel? No Heath bars? Not even a roll of LifeSavers?
How many times do you think HatGuy stopped to eat something while writing this column? Fifteen? Twenty? I'm guessing he ate at least one of each and every food he mentions.
Girardi came to the Yankees with a reputation as something of an extremist, but this is ridiculous. We’re talking about grown men here. We’re talking about a freaking Reese's peanut butter cup.
Well, to be fair, you were the one who brought up the peanut butter cup.
It wasn’t that long ago — within the past 20 years — that baseball clubhouses were among the last refuges from a world that was becoming obsessed with inflicting “healthy” living on everyone — by law if necessary.
Yes, 'twas a fine time. The baseball men would laze about, drunk on molasses moonshine, cheeks puffed with tobacco crabgrass. No coloreds were allowed, and the only women were the Lace Tutu Girls, whose sole purpose was to light your cigar and freshen your martini -- toplessly, of course. Ah, 1988.
Once upon a time, players arriving for work could load up on free chewing and spit tobacco to get the nicotine that kept their engines running.
People say a lot of things about baseball. But one thing I think just doesn't get enough play is that it doesn't have enough mouth cancer.
Next to the tobacco was a rack of gum and candy. Coffee urns dispensed a brew so strong you felt you could slice it and eat it in a sandwich.
Food...metaphor? No. Yes. No, wait. No. Brain twisting...screw it, I'm adding the "food metaphors" label and the "liberal use of 'food metaphors' label" label. You happy, "food metaphors" label crazies? You're welcome.
Out of sight from the public but no less readily available were amphetamines — “greenies” — for those who needed to kick-start their games.
So you're pro-greenies? What? I'm lost.
When their work was done, the tired heroes foraged through a postgame buffet that included at least three items from the all-important grease food group. Coolers harbored all manner of soda pop and enough beer in the players’ favorite brands — Free and Free Lite — to get a fraternity house through rush week.
Yeah. That's partly why I bet a team of modern players would kick these lard-assy gentlemanly layabouts' asses. Just a guess.
Except Wade Boggs. Dude would drink 70 beers on a cross-country flight and still go 3 for 5.
It wasn’t something that the American Heart Association (or your mom) was going to endorse, but when you threw in the magazine collection — heavy on hunting, cars and women who had forgotten to bring their clothing to their photo shoots – it wasn’t surprising that ballplayers liked to get to the park early and stay later than absolutely necessary. Clubhouse life was as good as it got.
HatGuy's new rallying cry: Bring back Car & Driver & Porn & Guns magazine!
And then the health police started getting involved.
I think HatGuy is confused. You can still eat all of these things. Relax. Breathe deeply. Look in your pantry. They're still there. All of them: the Three Musketeers, the Butterfingers, the Snickers, the Milky Way Darks. Now look in your freezer. See the ice cream? Yep, it's still there. Hey, here's an idea: what if you crumbled up some of those candy bars on top of the ice cream? That's good, isn't it?
Now isn't that more fun than writing a column about there being no chocolate in the Yankees' clubhouse? Aw, he fell asleep. The little HatGuy's all tuckered out. Isn't that cute?
The first thing to go was free tobacco for reasons that should be obvious. Then teams started to get more healthy choices in the buffets. In some clubhouses the beer also disappeared.
There were good reasons for all of the decisions. Tobacco can kill you, and so can excesses of grease.
Or chocolate. Or -- gasp -- hot fudge sundaes with whipped cream. It's all fun and games when you're just making metaphors about sundaes, but when those metaphors become reality, it's your arteries that pay.
And if a player were to get drunk in the clubhouse and then get in an accident, the team could face heavy liability.
It’s not as if modern ballplayers are Babe Ruth wannabes who train on hot dogs, beer, cigars and babes. (Well, maybe the babes, but not the other things.) These guys work out year-round and many have nutritionists and trainers at their beck and call.
So they probably don't care that much about not scarfing down Turtles for three hours straight before the game.
Sure, you’ve got your C.C. Sabathias carrying on the weighty tradition of David Wells and other noted gourmands, but for the most part, these guys are as healthy and fit as anyone could ever want to be.
So is it that modern players are all so in shape that it doesn't matter if they eat junk in the clubhouse or that it was more fun back in the old days when all guys did was eat junk in the clubhouse?
Also, not really sure how fit Joba Chamberlain is. Maybe he's like the Kingpin and it's all solid muscle.
A Dove bar or a bag of M&Ms is not going to hurt them, and it just might make them feel better — and therefore perform better.
Oh, I get it. It's neither. It's that Chocolate Makes People Better At Things! You think the chocolate lobby has gotten to HatGuy? Look, we've all been tempted by the money Big Chocolate throws at us, but I've always thought of HatGuy has an incorruptible lone kook-type.
Chocolate can, in fact, be very good for you. Dark chocolate is full of anti-oxidants and contains a chemical that elevates your mood.
Yarrrgggh!!! Corporate synergy -- they wrote chocolate into the storyline!
Right here is probably where HatGuy sticks in some hard scientific evidence proving that chocolate improves your WARP3 -- This is well-known at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Harry Potter and his posse frequently were ordered to eat lots of chocolate to help them heal after a busy day battling Dementors.
Best part of an already unbelievable gold mine (of gold chocolate coins) of an article.
Chocolate isn’t junk food.
WE GET IT.
Some would argue it’s the best food nature ever contributed to our diet, a food loaded with anti-oxidants and imbued with a mood-elevating substance called theobromine, from which comes cacao’s scientific name — theobroma, the “food of the gods.” Was ever any product of nature more aptly named?
Holy f-ing s. He's really lost it, hasn't he? I'm worried. I'm honestly, no-kidding, 100% worried about Michael Celizic's mental state. Call me, Mike. Well, no. Don't do that. Just write an article about A-Rod faking his injury so he can avoid those high-pressure May at bats so I know everything's all right.
And now, just for the fun of it, I will now list each and every food (including repeats) or other consumptible (I made that word up to mean something you put in your body in a food-like manner) found in the column:
candy cane Reese's peanut butter cups candy ice cream M&Ms Dove bars granola nuts dried fruits salt nuts apple pie chocolate nougat caramel Heath bars LifeSavers candy bar Reese's peanut butter cup chewing and spit tobacco gum candy coffee sandwich greenies buffet grease soda pop beer tobacco beer grease hot dogs beer amino acids vitamins ginseng Dove bar bag of M&Ms chocolate dark chocolate chocolate chocolate best food nature ever contributed to our diet cacao "food of the gods"
Friends, we have truly entered a strange era of sports journalism criticism. It's not like the salad days of sports journalism criticism, where all of the sports journalism was straightforward and sincere in its idiocy. Nowadays, it seems to me, the increasing prominence of sports journalism criticism has led to what appears to be ironic sports journalism, which -- again, it appears to me -- seems to be either (a) taking into account or (b) outright like seeking sports journalism criticism, in order to draw attention to itself or get more hits for its specific site, or just maybe to stir some good old fashioned shit. (If these pieces in fact contain what the legal system calls "intent," they might be properly called: sports journalism criticism criticism. This is one of those f(f(f(x))) deals that make Junior giddy.)
Let's go ahead and take it as a given that this turdpile may be tongue in cheek, or at the very least, bait. If it's a parody, it's brilliant. If it's sincere, holy God. And if it's bait, well, I just bit, and it tastes delicious, even though I know the hook is about to pierce me through the lower jaw and drain my lifeforce. Given the state of the economy and all the political mud slinging going on, I probably should be worried about my country these days. But the truth is, I’ve got more important things on my mind, including the most important thing of all.Baseball.
Me too. Love baseball. Love it. Love everything about it. You and I have a lot in common, here, Jimmy. Let's talk baseball. What do you want to hit first? The Tigers' surprisingly bad start? The Go-Go Royals? The Yankees' injuries? How about Johnny Cueto?! Have you seen that guy pitch? Holey moley! Whatever you want to talk about, man -- it's your article. You pick.
No, not the lab rats who play it or the trust-fund babies who run it. Baseball has been around since they used cowpies for bases. It has survived despite itself for this long, so there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to.
So you're not thinking about the players, or the owners, or even the game itself. Seems like those are fun things to think about when one thinks about baseball -- the players, teams, or games. But okay. I'm all ears. What subject tickles your fancy this fine Spring day?
I’m worried about us, the fans. I’m worried that aliens are trying to attack our brains.
If the article stopped right here, it would be my favorite sports article of all time. Armstrong should have stopped right here, and then, as a publicity stunt, run onto the highway wearing only a Green Hornet mask and diving flippers, waving a toy gun and screaming about the Warren Report. He would be a legend.
At least they might as well be aliens. But for the record, they’re lifeless geeks who wake up every morning in hopes of creating a new baseball statistic.
Oh.
Sigh.
Hang on a second. I was half-asleep asleep on this old busted-up futon in my mom's basement, eating handfuls of sugary cereal out of the box and contemplating buying some vintage Ram-Man action figures off eBay, but now I guess I have to struggle to an upright position and try to address this guy's concerns.
Have you seen some of the quote, unquote stats out there?
My man: when you are talking you say "quote-unquote" to indicate sarcasm. When you are writing you can just put things in quotes. As in: Jim Armstrong is a "journalist." He is also "funny" and "smart" and I "want to hang out with him" because he seems to have a lot of "good" "points."
When I was a kid hustling autographs at Wrigley Field, the game was all about W’s and L’s. Now it’s about WHIP and VORP and OPS and BABIP.
Anyone who writes anything for a living should avoid cliché. I think we can all agree on that. This thought is now officially the #1 cliché about the baseball statistics debate. When I was a kid, people only cared about wins and losses. Now everyone is a nerd who loves weird stats and hates baseball. Please, all of you who have this thought, listen to me. Please. Here we go.
There have always been statistics in baseball. Always. Statistics like WHIP and VORP and OPS are better than the old statistics, because they give you more actual pertinent information. This is not up for debate. If you don't like these stats, don't use them. But don't tell me that they aren't interesting or good.
I just don't get it, man. No one ever said: "When I was a kid, if we were going to cut off your leg we'd give you a shot of whiskey and a rope to bite down on, and we'd just take a dirty hacksaw and just hack away, outside, on the ground. Why do all these nerds keep talking about 'anaesthesia' and 'sterilization?!'"
And let’s not forget the most important acronym of them all: HGH.
Has nothing to do with the argument you are developing. Not a stat. Bad writing.
VORP? WHIP? BABIP? Since when did a Harvard physics degree replace a ticket stub for admission to the left-field bleachers?
Since March of 2003. You didn't hear? You need a math/science/engineering degree from Harvard, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, MIT, or University of Mumbai. Or a Philosophy degree from Pittsburgh.
I don’t know about you, but I liked the way things were before some self-absorbed numbers cruncher dreamed up VORP (Value Over Replacement Player, whatever that means.)
It's pretty self-explanatory, but here. Read something. It makes you smarter.
Additionally: pandering to ignoramuses is not a flattering character trait. And being a snooty dick is? Hey! How'd you gain the ability to type, Ken's superego?
And while we’re on the subject, didn’t that guy have something better to do that day?
Here we go.
Like getting some fresh air
It's a-comin'.
instead of spending the entire day
Oh my god. I can feel it. It's so close.
in his boxer shorts
Do it!
in his
Yyyyyyyyyyyy...
mother’s
...yyyyyyyyyyyyyy...
basement?
...yessssss! Whoooooooo!
HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!
In his mother's basement!!!!!
In his fucking mother's fucking basement!
Holy shit.
Holy shit, you guys.
In his mother's basement!
Boooooooooo-ya!
In his mother's basement.
He fucking nailed it, you guys.
Nailed it. Jesus.
Man. Okay. Just...that was awesome, is all. Awesome.
Let me guess.
Please.
The guy spends every waking moment of every day on his computer. And his only correspondence with the outside world is with fellow self-absorbed numbers crunchers who spend every waking moment of every day in dogged pursuit of the next esoteric pseudostat.
Keith Woolner is his name. He currently works for the Cleveland Indians. I guarantee he has watched more baseball games in the past ten years than you have. Also: they're not "pseudostats." They're just: stats. (They're not even really that esoteric, though I suppose what's straightforward to some might be "esoteric" to someone who never reads anything, or cares to, or has any intellectual curiosity at all.) (When did having zero intellectual curiosity about the world -- and a corresponding sneering contempt for those who have any -- become a positive character trait instead of a flashing warning signal that this person is a stubborn dummy?) (Oh -- right.)
These are the baseball writers of today. Forget Roger Angell and David Halberstam and all those other curmudgeons. They wrote about the romance of the game, the visceral attraction of the game, the simple pleasures of the game. They wrote about the Boys of Summer and the dads who took their sons out to the yard to watch them.
Fantastic writers. Brilliant. I eat 'em up. Most people I know love them.
Today, it’s all about the numbers and the psychos who crunch them.
No it's not. No. Wrong. It is not. Did you read Tom Verducci's piece about Red Sox fans in SI, for their Sportsmen of the Year issue in 2004? Do you read Leigh Montville, or Buzz Bissinger, or Bill Plaschke? Now, I am not personally a fan of some of these people, but they write about the humanistic elements of the game. That kind of writing is out there, if you want it.
They call themselves sabermetricians. I call them seamheads, among other things.
I’m telling you, we need to stop these people before it’s too late. Before we’re all walking around in a cyberfog talking in acronyms that only Stephen Hawking could understand.
Come on, man. Hawking is such a hacky choice. At least go Roger Penrose, or Andrew Wiles, or Max Tegmark or something.
President Bush, your basic baseball junkie, needs to swing into action in the best interests of the country. He needs to have his Homeland Security Nazis break into these people’s homes and take a Louisville Slugger to their computers.
I don't exactly know how this is offensive, but I'm sure it is. Let's figure it out together. He mentions Nazis, which is generally considered offensive. He mentions them in reference to people serving in the U.S. Government, which is probably not supercool. He is asking the President of the United States to order the government to attack its citizens for talking about baseball statistics, which is interesting. Huh. Can't quite pinpoint it. At least it's a hilarious joke, though.
If not, I may have to resort to drastic measures. I may have to become a soccer fan. Think about it. There are no seamheads trying to take over the soccer world.
There can’t be because there are no numbers to crunch. Well, a few maybe, but not enough to get all hot and bothered about.
Also, soccer is cool and fun to watch.
Things are simpler in soccer. There’s no WHIP or VORP in soccer, just a few DOAs after the usual fan rowdiness in the stands. In soccer, all the stats are the same. All the goalkeepers have a .001 goals-allowed average and, at the end of the season, everyone ties for the league lead with one goal scored.
Not in baseball.
Right. Which is why we need more statistical analysis.
In the past few days alone, I’ve come across such stats as OPS (One-base Plus Slugging percentage),
Huh?!?!?!?!
GWRBI (Game Winning Runs Batted In),
Da-whaaaaaa?!?!
DIPS (Don’t Ask),
What'd you call me? You're a DIPS!
QERA (Quantified Earned Run Average),
That looks like "queer!" Heh heh heh heh heh!
WHIP (Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched)
Skler-boink?!?!?!?!
and BABIP (Batting Average for Balls In Play).
(slack-jawed; confused; drools)
Let me just get a few things straight. (a) You just found out about OPS? (b) You just heard about GWRBI, a stat that was so mainstream it was briefly on the backs of baseball cards in the late 1980s before people realized it was dumb? (c) You can't succinctly explain DIPS? Here.
Good thing Casey Stengel isn’t around to see this nonsense. All this numbers crunching might have interrupted his nap in the dugout.
And that...would be...bad?
Or Earl Weaver. He would have been so busy thumbing through computer printouts, he wouldn’t have had time to sneak in a half-pack of smokes in the runway.
Napping and smoking. You know -- baseball. What baseball should be. Napping and smoking while you manage a professional baseball team.
GM: Thanks for meeting with us. Prospective Manager: Thank you for seeing me.
GM: Look. We are one of 30 professional baseball teams in the country. The franchise is worth about $500 million, give or take. We have a brand new stadium, partially financed by the taxpayers of this county. The revenue of our sport last year was roughly $7 billion. You are going to control a roster of 24-40 men, the average salary of whom is north of $3 million. They come from Canada, the U.S., Central America, South America, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and several Caribbean Islands. You have to make sure that they are used correctly, that their egos are in check, that they can withstand the grind of a 162-game schedule, that they don't do stupid extra-curricular shit like go to strip clubs, and you need to be aware of which guys are in trouble with steroids, which guys need carrots and which need sticks, and you'll need to soothe the feathers of the veterans (and rookies) who get sent down, and you have to do all of this while winning at least 90 games.
Prospective Manager: Got it.
GM: So, what will you do during the average game?
Prospective Manager: Nap and smoke.
GM: You're hired.
Prospective Manager: Great.
GM: Now you're fired. I wanted to hire you just so I could fire you.
Prospective Manager: But Casey Stengel napped!
GM: He managed the fucking Yankees from 1949 to 1960. You'd've napped too, if you had those players.
Prospective Manager: And Earl Weaver smoked!
GM: He also used stats. A lot. He famously encouraged his hitters to walk and knew the value of 3-run homers. Get out of my office.
Other than their utter lack of social skills, I’m not sure why all these computer nerds keep dreaming up new stats.
Look. It may be true that I have no friends, no wife, no children, and that I live in a soggy refrigerator crate in my mom's basement. That's no reason to be rude.
I guess my hope is that by dreaming up new stats, I will somehow attract the attention of a nice, introverted, monobrowed nerd girlfriend with bad teeth who will take pity on me and marry me and we can have nerd children who will grow up to be rocket scientists and develop a secret Doomsday Device with which we can rule the world!
In the end, the question is whether their numbers add to the enjoyment of the game. And the answer is no.
Shut up. Seriously, man, shut the fuck up. This is like saying,"I don't like action movies, so no one can ever enjoy action movies because action movies are terrible." If you don't want to use stats, don't use them. I don't care. But for the love of goddamned God, don't tell me that statistical analysis "doesn't add up to enjoyment of the game." You are telling me that my friends and I are incapable of enjoying baseball. I promise you -- I PROMISE you -- I enjoy baseball. I love baseball. This is not a situation where only one kind of person can love baseball. Lots of different people can love baseball for lots of different reasons. In my case, I love baseball every bit as much as you, but -- and here's the difference between you and me -- I also understand it. If you are interested in learning how to understand it, just ask. I can teach you in like 10 minutes. (And I don't even know that much about sabermetrics.)
I’ll tell you what adds to the enjoyment of the game, and I’ll put it in terms these geeks can understand.
(a) Fuck off, again, and (b) hit me...
ABAB (a Beer And a Brat).
Blammo. Nailed the joke. I give up. I will crawl into your cave with you and relearn how to enjoy baseball without using any part of my brain. Just my stomach. And we'll be alcoholics together and high-five a lot and yell "You Suck" at opposing players. Sounds like a good time.
Also -- and this is a giant "no shit, dude" -- but writing about stats and writing about the "humanistic" side of the game don't have to be mutually exclusive. Anyone who's read an ounce of Bill James knows this.
hey guys, it's me. what's been going on? anyway, shouldn't "a Beer And a Brat" be ABAAB? kinda sad that he had us wait for this gem and then flubbed it anyway. okay, cool, see you guys later.
in response to those of you who requested the coveted "Food Metaphors" label due to either (a) "salad days" or (b) "ABAB," I say: these are not, strictly speaking, metaphors. However, we like to reward those who keep an eye out for coveted "food metaphors label" opportunities, so I am going to tag this with the less-coveted 'liberal use of food metaphors label" label.
Second, many of you sent in this better example of sabermetrics-style approaches to soccer:
http://fannation.com/blogs/post/173648
"Better" because it actually involved Billy Beane himself getting interested in the subject.
We salute you, Brian. Here's hoping that one day, historians will think of you as the Dick Fosbury of baseball. I know I do. Then again, I have a very rare and specific disease which prevents me from thinking of modern baseball players in any terms other than legends of track and field.
Anyway, did you guys see Sergei Bubka hit his third Grapefruit League tater today? That kid can flat out rake.
If we're getting super liberal, any mention of the Grapefruit or Cactus League should qualify as well, right? Look, guys. I just want to live in a world where every FJM post has a "food metaphors" label. Is that so much to ask?
So I will make fun of this Don Banks article about the upcoming AFC Championship game between the New England Perfects and the San Jose Somethings. This falls under the umbrella statement: "Every time a critic tells you how Team X could beat Team Y in a 'Keys to the Game' type of deal, shit gets stupid."
[H]ere are five things the Chargers need to pull one of biggest upsets ever:
1. LaDainian Tomlinson must be a difference-maker.
The #1 offensive weapon the Chargers have must have a good game. That seems crazy to me, but keep going. 2. A surprising contribution from an unsung player.
He's talking about Billy Volek, if Rivers can't play. So, so far we have:
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Keep those turnovers coming.
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Chargers force turnovers. 4. Harrison and Seau play more like old Patriots rather than ex-Chargers.
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Chargers force turnovers. 4. Some members of Patriots' defense do not play well. 5. History to repeat itself.
He's talking about Week 4 of the 2005 regular season, when the Bolts beat the Pats and broke their streak of home wins. So, to conclude, here are the things the Chargers need, in order to win the game:
1. Chargers' running back must be good. 2. Chargers' QB must be good. 3. Chargers force turnovers. 4. Patriots' defense does not play well. 5. Chargers [make? cause?] history [to] repeat[s] itself.
or
5. Chargers win game, thereby winning game.
Who needed this article to be written? This article is a waste of time. This article is the "liberal use of the 'food metaphors' label" label of "Keys to the Game"-style articles.
Woody Paige wrote an article about the Broncos' humiliating loss to Chicago on Sunday. It's mostly fine. But here's how it starts:
The Broncos committed the seven deadly sins of football:
1. Carelessness — 88-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.
2. Stupidity — 75-yard punt return for touchdown.
I don't understand why allowing an 88-yard kickoff return for a TD is "carelessness," while allowing a 75-yard punt return for a touchdown is "stupidity." Why not the other way around? And as long as you're cleverly using the "7 Deadly Sins" rhetorical conceit, why not just make "Kicking to Devin Hester" = "Pride"?
3. Sloth — blocked punt recovered at their 18.
I'm sorry. But how is having a punt blocked evidence of "sloth?" That's nonsense. Did you guys see the Pats-Eagles game? When Gostkowski missed that 32-yard field goal...man, that was some lust.
4. Ineptitude — failure to score touchdowns on two possessions inside the 5-yard line.
5. Folly — interception at their own 18.
6. Clumsiness — a fumble that ended up at their 14.
You could match up any of these three "sins" with any of their three examples -- or any of the first three, really -- and no one would notice.
7. Horrendous judgment — prevent defense at the end of regulation and in overtime.
I agree, Woody. That was an example of horrendous judgment. Nice work with your metaphors.
(Because "gluttony" is one of the 7 deadly sins, I am going to tag this with "food metaphors." Deal with it.)
