Are sports radio personalities fair game for us? And by that I mean, are we just shooting fish in a barrel? Even moreso than when we like dissect a Tim McCarver quotation? Frankly, I hear so much terrible sports radio that I rarely feel compelled to comment on it, viewing it as sort of the Ann Coulter of sports commentary -- so extreme and hystrionic and silly as to not be worth getting upset about. But this segment, which aired Tuesday during ESPN Radio's "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd, was so inane, I just couldn't help but put the rest of my life on hold, transcribe it, and present it here, for you.
I wish I could convey his strained, howling voice...the condescending way he makes his points, as if he were speaking to a four year-old...the way his arrogance and self-assuredness positively oozes through one's car speakers as he blathers on...and I once again urge you to follow the link in the post
sub and hear it all for yourself. But if you cannot, please accept this endless post as a substitute.
The title of the segment: "More than Stats." It is here, in its entirety, with some comments from yours truly. Sorry for the length of the post, but to really do it justice, you need to experience the whole awful twelve minutes.
All grammar, syntax, and idiocy is [sic].
The problem with the Hall of Fame – it’s become Nerd World. [ridiculous "nerd" voice] “Hey, if you look at his OPB -- yes you know me -- his OPS, if you multiply it using a sliding chart and you put some marmalade on your toes, he appears to be a 14th ballot Hall of Famer.” The Hall of Fame has become “Nerd World in Orlando.”
[KICK ASS GUITAR INTERLUDE]Right off the bat, here, I am very excited. I wish I could paint a picture for you of how unfunny Colin Cowherd's "nerd voice" is. Suffice it to say: it is really unfunny. Also, some things I love about his intro: he (intentionally?) misquotes OBP as OPB, and then adds an "OPP" reference.
"OPP." That song from like twenty years ago.
Also: his examples of what a nerd might use when discussing baseball are (1) a "sliding chart" and (2) "putting marmalade on [one's] toes." Devastating, to us nerds. I don't know how I will ever recover from such punchy and hilarious parody.
The electric guitar riff, as with all electric guitar riffs in radio shows, feels decidedly unironic.
Jose Canseco should be in the Hall of Fame and here’s why. It’s called “Hall of Fame.” “Fame” for “famous.” For ten years he was the most talked about player in the league. He is the whistle blower, the only honest person in this sport, who called out the game’s discrepancies and lies. He is famous, he is relevant and he is talked about. [nerd voice] “Well his numbers don’t compare—“ I don’t care. It’s called Hall of Fame, not "Hall of Very Good."This is just good, good stuff. It will be important, as we move along here, to try to remember the central theses of Cowherd's argument -- both because they are idiotic and because he contradicts each and every one of them before the 12 minutes are up. Let's summarize:
Jose Canseco should be in the Hall of Fame because he is famous. I will say right off the bat that the "fame" part of "Hall of Fame" should not be taken literally. Cowherd spends a good deal of time making his argument based on semantics -- he says that because it is called the Hall of Fame, if Player X is famous, Player X should be in the Hall of Fame. This seems to me to short-circuit a key fact; namely, that "Hall of Fame" as a phrase, when modified by the adjective "Baseball," probably is intended to mean: an institution that recognizes the best baseball players. One would not think that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame would admit Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears, who are two of the most famous musicians right now, simply because of the number of US Weekly articles in which they appear. They would also have to be good Rock and Roll musicians. See how that works?
Second, we have the argument that Canseco should be in the HOF for being (a) a whistle-blower, (b) "the only honest person in the sport," (c) famous, relevant, and talked about. Now, far be it from me to argue with a man who does such a good imitation of a nerd, but I would humbly suggest that even if we are going to allow such things to be qualifications for the HOF, doesn't Canseco's candidacy get damaged by the fact that he was the guy who started the whole steroids mess to begin with? And lied about it, repeatedly? And got lots of other guys into it? And just generally cheated like crazy?
By Cowherd's new and excitingly dumb set of criteria, if Harold Baines had murdered Ron Kittle with a fungo bat in 1983, then buried the body, then admitted it after he (Baines) retired, and wrote a book about it, and testified in front of Congress about how he taught a bunch of people how to brain their fellow players with fungo bats, and he, Baines, got really famous for it...first ballot?
It is already a sham, because littered through the Hall of Fame are huge hypocrisies. Pete Rose is the all-time hit king, Major League Baseball allows gambling all over the sport, and gambling advertising, yet the all-time hit king doesn’t get in. Total hypocrisy. We’ve got players who were nice to the media but very very good, not great, getting in. Jim Rice dominates for 12 years, he doesn’t? Jack Morris, best right-hander in the game arguably for ten years, doesn’t?By the way, obviously, all of the paragraph breaks here are arbitrary and KT-generated. I insert this here only for a dramatic pause before what I call Massive Cowherd Boner #1, which is:
I mean, if you’re an MVP, you’re a Hall of Fame guy.The insane contradictions have begun. Didn't CC just say "It's the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good?" And now he says that anyone who wins the MVP should be in the Hall of Fame? The MVP? That is voted on by the same media he just derided (and will again later) as being suckers for a nice ballplayer -- so much so that they will vote in a mediocre player if he was nice to them? But if you win an MVP you should be in the HOF? Are you kidding me?
Juan Gonzalez
Mo Vaughn
George Bell
Don Mattingly
Ken Caminiti
Terry Pendleton
Kevin Mitchell
Willie McGee
Willie Hernandez
Don Baylor
George Foster
Jeff Burroughs
Fred Lynn
Zoilo Versalles
It is the Hall of Fame, Colin. Not the Hall of Very Good.
Rafael Palmeiro would have gotten in – never been an MVP, never was close. In 19 years, only 5 did he even make the all-star team.Remember the year (1989) Mike Schmidt was hitting .203 with 6 HR in May and retired? And then he still made the All-Star team? You know why stuff like that happens?
Because the all-star team is a stupid fan-based popularity contest and has nothing at all to do with actual performance.But it’s become nerd world. Where everybody constructs arguments based on data and research, and if you accumulate over time a bunch of numbers – that’s not great, that’s just working in a factory for 30 years. If you work in a factory for 26 years and are good, that doesn’t make you great. Good doesn’t become great over time -- good’s good and great’s great.Let's begin the Colin Cowherd drinking game, wherein we do a shot everytime Colin says the words "good" or "great." We will all be dead in thirty seconds.
Also, I really enjoy the way he sneers at the classic nerd activity of constructing arguments based on data and research. It is much better to construct them using parodies of nerd voices as you scream meaningless phrases into a microphone in Bristol, CT.
You’re either a model or a supermodel. If you’re a model for 30 years, you’re not elevated to a supermodel. You’re a supermodel if you’re Tyra Banks. Okay? There’s a model and then there’s a supermodel. The Hall of Fame is supermodel territory.Those of you blessedly unfamilliar with CC's on-air persona may find this analogy odd. Those of you who listen to him regularly -- perhaps because your radio broke while tuned to ESPN Radio, or perhaps because you are working at a NASA weather monitoring station in Greenland and it's the only channel you receive, or perhaps because you are a masochistic sports fan whose stupid friend dak started a blog a year ago designed to comment on sports commentary and you just can't help yourself -- will note that such analogies are par for the AM drive-time course.
What is particularly galling about CC's analogies is not so much that once he establishes one he will repeat it as many times as he can in every segment of his show -- to the point where you think man, maybe this guy has like hard-core short-term "Memento"-style memory loss or something -- but how an overwhelming number of them involve models and/or strippers. To wit: a recent show in which he said a number (37? 52?) of times that no one should give Terrell Owens a long-term contract because he is like a stripper, and "You don't marry the stripper." The psychological and -sexual implications of Cowherd comparing the muscularly-gifted T.O. to a female stripper I leave to the FJM readership to decipher.
Some supermodels aren’t the prettiest girls – there is a “wow” factor to them. This is what Basketball’s Hall of Fame has thought for years. Basketball has the Harlem Globetrotters. They’re an exhibition team in the Hall of Fame. They have referees, they have people who were huge and influential and relevant in moments in time. They didn’t have it based on numbers. It’s based on relevance and importance and impact.I'm pretty sure the Basketball HOF also takes "excellence in basketball" into consideration when inducting people. And for the record -- and this is important, here -- the Baseball HOF also has a lot of exhibits involving umpires and "moments in time" and "people who were huge" and all of that stuff. They have Curt Schilling's sock and Len Barker's perfect game ball (I assume) and probably the bat that Fernando Tatis used to hit two grand slams in an inning off Chan Ho Park. They have all sorts of "moments in time" stuff. They just reserve
membership for the players who had the best
careers.
Jose Canseco is absolutely one of the 12 most known names in the history of the sport.MCB #2. Here, I'll prove it:
Babe Ruth
Willie Mays
Hank Aaron
Jackie Robinson
Roger Clemens
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Mark McGwire
Sammy Sosa
Ted Williams
Ty Cobb
Mickey Mantle
Joe Dimaggio
Pete Rose
There. Thirteen people more "known" in baseball than Jose Canseco.
From his home runs to his ego to the bash brothers to the whistle-blowing with steroids, he is absolutely relevant in the history of baseball. In the history of the sport. They’ll write stories about Jose Canseco. They ain’t writing them about Richie Ashburn, who compiled and constructed good numbers over time. It is called the Hall of Fame. “Famous” is part of the equation.Yikes. Okay. Yes, he is relevant in the history of baseball. That does not mean he should be elected to the HOF
as a player. Yes, they will write stories about him: some of them will praise his actions. Some will point out that he was a massive fraud as a player. Some will claim that he only came clean to sell books. This is all interesting and relevant and all that. None of it will change the fact that even using performance-enhancing drugs, he is not worthy of inclusion into the HOF as a player. Why can CC not distinguish between relevance as a personality and performance as a player?
What really bugs me is, CC might have an argument if he said that the HOF should maybe build a new wing or something for "newsmakers" and nominate people for permanent inclusion who significantly impacted the course of baseball history. Like Canseco. Or Bud Selig. Or Donald Fehr. I can see this argument. I cannot accept that anyone who does anything that makes him "famous" should be in the HOF proper.
David, you’re in LA, and you’re in the Herd.
David: Whassup, Colin, glad to be here. Speaking of, ah, nerds, you know, nobody went on the mound looking goofier than Orel Hershiser -- like Ned Flanders or Richie Cunningham. But his stuff was filthy. You know, he dominated – [inaudible] – so I just gotta give him props for the Hall of Fame.At this point, KT is thinking to himself: "Please, please, please do not defend Orel Hershiser as a legitimate HOFer, Colin. Please."
Cowherd: For ten years Orel Hershiser was the most unhittable guy in the game. Hall of Famer.Oh, Colin. What did you go and do?
Hershiser:
Career ERA+: 112
Career W/L: 204-150
Average 162-game K total: 140
Season high K: 190
Even if you subscribe to CC's argument that the HOF should be about "dominant stretches" and dominant stretches only, I invite anyone to go
here and find the ten year period that Orel Hershiser was "the most unhittable guy in the game." You will not find it, but I invite you to try. (Hint: in order to accomplish this, you can use nerd stats like "WHIP," which is a nerdy nerd nerd tool used to figure out roughly how hittable a guy is. I apologize for using data and research to back my claim, instead of Colin Cowherd's insane knee-jerk comment to David in L.A. Let's hope the HOF doesn't make the same mistake.)
I have never understood the argument that if you have a bunch of solid years for 19 years, that should elevate it to “great.” You’re a model or you’re a supermodel, and it doesn’t matter how long you model – you’re never elevated to a supermodel. A bunch of goods don’t make a great. Great’s great, famous is famous, infamous is infamous. The basketball Hall of Fame’s got it right. People who are relevant, people who are talked about, people who are important to the growth of the sport, to the relevance of the sport. It’s called a Basketball Hall of Fame.Let's play a nerd-game, Colin. Which is to say, let's "think" with our "brains." What if Horace Grant retired, and then didn't make it into the HOF, and then revealed, in a tell-all book and several appearances on like "I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here!" and the like, that he, Horace, was a huge meth dealer in the NBA for 17 years and that the NBA has a massive meth problem. I just don't think that he would be inducted into the Basketball HOF. CC has two arguments -- Canseco is famous so he should be in, and anyone who dominates or is "relevant" should be in. Ironically, he then says "infamous is infamous," which only serves to remind us that what Canseco is, in fact, in retrospect, is "infamous." Which is why his "fame" is not exactly what the HOF is looking for in terms of permanent membership.
Rodney in Indianapolis, what up, Rodney?Editor's note: as soon as KT heard Rodney from Indianapolis's voice, he, KT, was pretty sure he was going to hate Rodney from Indianapolis. He just didn't anticipate how much.
Rodney: How’s it going, man, love the show. Hey, I gotta disagree with you on Palmeiro, though. I think you’re right that I don’t want to hear about the range factor, I don’t want to hear about ERA-plus or OPS or any of these made-up statistics. But 500 and 3000 -- those are statistics that rubber-stamp you for the Hall of Fame in my opinion. And I think good does become great if you do it for 20 years at a high level, so I think Palmeiro, barring the steroids phenomenon over the last year or so, he’s a Hall of Famer.Rodney was a very derisive fellow, and one could tell from the sneer in his voice just how pansy-ass and stupid (and I believe yes Rodney from Indianapolis would probably love to use the word
nerdy here) these so-called "statistics" are. They are for nerds! Only nerds use stats like "OPS -- what is that? Some kind of made up nerd language for nerds to talk to other nerds? I mean, OPS? What are you, a
nerd!?!??! What the hell is ERA-Plus, anyway, nerdboy? I'm Rodney from Indianapolis, you sons of bitches!
If you do not know:
OPS is on-base percentage plus slugging percentage. A crude but fairly effective way to determine how good a baseball player is.
ERA+ is simply ERA that has been adjusted to account for certain factors, e.g. the ballpark a pitcher plays in. It can be a much truer measure of a pitcher's value than just ERA. It is not "made-up" anymore than any statistic is "made-up."
Range factor stinks -- Rodney from Indianapolis has us there. But not for the reason he thinks he does.
Rodney from Indianapolis is a shitheel frat guy who uses "rubber-stamp" as a verb and once had to be rushed to an emergency room because he jammed his entire fist inside his rectal cavity. [
Ed. note -- some of this is conjecture.]
Cowherd: Well, I’d say this: if you work at a company for 20 years and you make about 60 grand, did your company ever consider you great? No, or they’d have paid you 500 grand. Loyal doesn’t make great. Loyal doesn’t make you a visionary. Loyal makes you loyal. Good makes you good. Very good makes you very good. And supermodels are just better than models.Still playing the drinking game? Are you dead from alcohol poisoning yet? You had to do six shots in that paragraph alone.
Now, I would never suggest that Colin Cowherd is a grade-A dummy. But this analogy really puzzles me. First of all, if you work at the same company for 20 years and the maximum salary for an employee at that company is $60,000, then yes, I would say that your company considers you great. But more importantly, if you are going to use effing
monetary compensation, even in an analogy, to discuss HOF credentials, then every single major leaguer should be in the HOF. They are all paid so much because they are all elite -- they are the best few hundred players on the planet. Put 'em all in!
The Hall of Fame in baseball has become a bunch of numbers you have to hit no matter how you get there. I mean, let’s say this – let me give you this – what if Julio Franco, he’s like 47, what if he now accomplished 4000 hits? What if a guy was just healthy -- let me give you this argument, using the argument you just used. If I ended up with 4000 hits but played 39 years in the game, because I had, I was just, genetically I was just incredibly lucky, and nobody got sick, am I a Hall of Famer? Cause I was a .248 hitter for 39 years? That makes me in, and Jim Rice is not? And Jack Morris and Steve Garvey are not?I don't even know where to start. How about some nerd stats?
If you averaged 600 AB a year for 39 years and hit .248, you'd have closer to say 5,800 hits. And that, I think, yes -- that would get you into the HOF, as you would have broken the all-time hit mark by more than 1500.
However, if you were a .248 hitter, you probably wouldn't last 39 years in the big leagues. Unless you hit a lot of HR and had a good SLG. (Sorry -- got nerdy there, for a second.) But even if I don't take CC's comments here at face value -- doing so is, admittedly, a bit disingenuous, since I get his point -- then, I will say, no, you would not get in. because you would be a freak of nature who was truly mediocre for an absurdly long period of time. However -- and this is key -- if you are very very very good for a long period of time, then yes, you do get in. No one would argue that if you are league-average for 39 years you are a HOFer. That's reductionist and stupid. And make-believe and pointless and boring to talk about.
To me, long being good doesn’t make you great. Great’s great. Tom Brady’s great. I don’t care if Tom Brady gets in a car wreck tomorrow. He’s a Hall of Famer. He’s great.If you're paying the drinking game, that's an amazing six more shots in like ten seconds.
Should Trent Green – I mean, how ridiculous is this to assert? – that if Trent Green has better numbers than Tom Brady because he plays 20 longer – 20 years longer than Tom Brady, Trent Green’s in the Hall of fame and Tom Brady’s not. Tom Brady’s a Hall of Famer. He’s never lost a playoff game. If he, if he passed away tonight in his sleep: 10-0 in the playoffs, three superbowls. He’s not a Hall of Famer? But Billy Kilmer, who played a bunch of years – and maybe, I don’t look at Billy Kilmer’s numbers very often – he would be?No one has ever suggested this. Yes, Tom Brady is great. Yes, he is a HOFer. No, Billy Kilmer would not be if he played for a long time. He had a career 53% completion rate and never even threw for 2600 yards in a season. (Though he did have an unbelievable 509 yards rushing in his rookie year with SFO, and scored 10 TD's. Were they running the option? Was he a RB? What gives?)
Also, as a Pats fan, I would like to respectfully ask that you stop coming up with horrifying scenarios involving Tom Brady's death.
Matt in Boston, what up Matt?
Matt: How’s it going Colin?
Cowherd: Good.
Matt: [strong Boston accent] Listen, I really love your show, but I completely disagree with what you’re saying today. The Baseball Hall of Fame puts in famous people. They put in Peter Gammons last year, they put in broadcasters and writers into a separate wing. Those people make the game what it is. As far as the players are concerned --
Cowherd: [weirdly argumentative] What is the game?
Matt: --you put it, you put in great players, and you don’t have to have a long career. Sandy Koufax is in the Hall of Fame, 'cause he had 6 dominant seasons. But you also reward people like Hank Aaron, who played 20-plus seasons, and you have a long sustaining career. You can’t just put in – Orel Hershiser was great for a period of four years in the late-80’s and early ‘90s.Ahhhhh. The soothing sounds of a thick Boston accent that introduces reason and sanity into an argument. Nice work, Matt. Cowherd's interruption kills me, because he is just picking a fight, and doesn't even know why. He just wanted to interrupt the guy, becaue he, Matt, was making very good points that exposed the flaws in CC's argument. Let's see how CC responds.
Cowherd: Orel Hershiser, Peter Gammons. Or Peter Gammons. Who’s more relevant to baseball? Orel Hershiser by a mile. [dripping with condescension] And Peter Gammons is a wonderful writer. But he’s a wonderful writer. Jose Canseco, in my opinion – it’s FAME.I will argue forever that Peter Gammons, whose Sunday notes column in the Globe was required reading, and who basically invented the on-site baseball insider that is so prevalent today, is so much more relevant to baseball than Orel Hershiser that even asking the question gives me hives. And -- and this is really the point --
didn't Cowherd just spend a long time talking about how the Basketball HOF is better than the Baseball HOF because the Basketball HOF lets in referees and Globetrotters and so forth????? Help me out here. That was his argument, right? And then, minutes later, with a tone in his voice similar to that of a wronged woman explaining to her no-good boyfriend that his cheating ways will simply not be tolerated any longer, he absolutely dismisses Peter Gammons with the ultimate insult: he's a
writer. How dare he be elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame, which is reserved for pretty good RHP from the 80's.
J.C. in Tampa, what up J.C.?
J.C.: How you doing Colin? I could not agree with you any more – everything you’re saying is absolutely correct. The thing about people, like, my example would be Pedro Martinez. The guy might not win 250 games in his career, he might retire next year, the year after. Is he not a first-ballot Hall of Famer?Quick interruption to say: everyone in the whole goddamn universe thinks that Pedro Martinez is a first-ballot HOFer. I repeat:
everyone thinks this. You are not proving anything by arguing this.
Now, pay close attention to J.C.'s next comment:
Cowherd: Oh, absolutely he is. Oh--
J.C: He’s a famous, famous guy. He changed the game for little guys everywhere. That can say, hey, I’m here, I am who I am, like me, love me, whatever, I’m great, I know it. Orel Hershiser’s in the same category.Oh my God. I'll make this as short as I can:
Pedro Martinez (career):
IP: 2513
WHIP: 1.02 (six seasons under 1.00. 0.737 in 2000)
K: 2861
Orel Hershiser (career)
IP: 3130
WHIP: 1.26
K: 2014
In 600 fewer IP, Pedro has 850 more Ks. Pedro is one of the five most dominant pitchers ever. He had a five-year run where he was simply playing a different game. Orel Hershiser is orders of magnitude worse than Pedro Martinez.
Also, this: "Hey, I’m here, I am who I am, like me, love me, whatever, I’m great, I know it." is poetry for the halfwit.
J.C. (cont'd): He’s not as flamboyant, obviously, but man, being a Mets fan, I saw him dominate, those World Series, those World Series… back in ’88, what was it, 25, 26 straight innings scoreless? Nobody’s ever done anything like that.It was 59. I like that he says: nobody's ever done anything like that! while quoting the stat at less than half its value. Way to make a strong argument.
Cowherd: I thought it was 50. I thought it was greater than that. Maybe—I’m not a baseball stat guy.You're kidding.
Again, the argument comes down to: are you relevant? I don’t care the period of time. Sandy Koufax really only had four ridiculous years. Jose Canseco had about 5, but is incredibly relevant in the history of baseball. Incredibly relevant. A dynamic personality, a polarizing personality, the only honest person in the game when it came to steroids. Why…why writers and broadcasters buddied up to the game, dismissed stories, covered stuff up, you could argue – Jose Canseco indicted himself and was brutally honest. That’s honest.So, just to recap: Colin Cowherd's criteria for HOF induction: five great years, "relevance," dynamism, a polarizing personality, and honesty. The last of which -- honesty -- is revealed as a characteristic only after (and only due to) a decade-long string of federal crimes which allowed the HOFer to cheat at the sport into whose HOF he is being inducted. And which crimes allowed him to greatly enhance the statistics he racked up during that great five year period.
Solid, solid reasoning.
I would also insert here the argument that all of the MLBers who never took steroids are more "honest" than someone who did and then later admitted it to sell a book.
888-SAY-ESPN. Greg, you’re in the herd.
Greg: Colin, enjoy your show. Couldn’t agree more today. You’re making points that you know, I think a lot of people gonna turn their head at. Canseco belongs in. Pete Rose belongs in. You know, it’s like you’re saying, it’s not longevity, it’s what you bring to the game. It’s kind of – on the NBA side, will Dennis Rodman ever be in…inducted? Odds are, probably not. Because they don’t like his lifestyle away from the game. The fact is, these type of players bring more to the playing field than any other people that are being put in because they’re a model citizen with nice numbers. Show me somebody that made the game famous, that I’m going to remember, not somebody that goes through and works out everyday and puts up a nice number and smiles and talks politely.We have a new criterion for HOF induction: Greg has to remember him.
Dennis Rodman isn't in the Basketball HOF because he was one-dimensional. Pete Rose isn't in the HOF because he bet on baseball, which, as is posted in every single MLB locker room,
is the one thing you can do that will absolutely ban you from baseball for life. (On a side note, didn't Pete Rose demonstrate some pretty hard-core longevity?)
Cowherd: I, you know, that’s the thing about longevity. I think it’s great. I think it’s wonderful if you work at a company for 28 years. But that doesn’t make you great – it makes you loyal. It makes you possibly a very good employee -- stable, solid, dependable, it doesn’t make you great.Four more shots, for the drinkers out there, and a wonderfully blind piece of reasoning. Nobody in the universe is arguing that
only longevity should determine one's HOF induction. You also have to be skilled at the game. See?
Now, watch this: my favorite moment.
It’s like I talked about earlier with beautiful -- we can debate over who’s cute and who’s not and who’s pretty and who’s not. Beautiful’s not debatable. Everybody agrees on beautiful.Come again?
And that’s kind of my litmus test for the Hall of Fame. If a woman walks into a room and is truly beautiful, there’s no arguing over it. We debate personality and, and, and cuteness and pretty – those are different words. Beautiful is beautiful. That’s not in the eye of the beholder – that’s in the eye of everybody.The idea...I'm sorry, I'm choking on my own tongue...the idea that the subjective quality "beautiful" is more objective than the subjective qualities of "cute" and "pretty"...what point are you trying to make? Seriously, dude. "Beauty is in the eye of...everybody?" That's what you're saying? You're saying that Jose Canseco is objectively great in the way that Woman X is objectively beautiful?
What. The Fuck. Are you talking about.
Let's play a game. Here are ten women:
Bette Midler
Penelope Cruz
Naomi Watts
My mom
Barbara Streisand
Jennifer Lopez
Hillary Clinton
Jessica Simpson
Scarlett Johannsen
Alfre Woodward
Write down which ones you think are beautiful, which ones are cute, and which ones are pretty. Then ask everyone else in America the same question. See if there is any more or less discrepancy in the "beautiful" category than in the others. The answer, to save you infinite hours of work: no, there is not.
Let's wrap this up. What do you say?
And I’ve always felt this – I think the Basketball Hall of Fame has it right. The Baseball Hall of Fame has become: for players who reach certain levels, if they’re friendly to the media, if they befriend certain writers, if they got along with people and played the game. I mean, Jack Morris and Jim Rice – Jim Rice for 12 years -- let me read you this.Hey -- everyone who is still reading. Remember how much Colin Cowherd hates nerds? And statistics? Get a load of this:
Jim Rice is considered a longshot Hall of Famer. Yet for a period of 12 years, mid 70’s to late 80s, Rice led all American League players in 12 different offensive categories, including: homers, RBI’s, total bases, slugging percentage, runs and hits. [long pause for dramatic effect] Among all major leaguers, only nine players – retired players – have compiled as high a career batting average and as many home runs as Jim Rice. Do you know who those players are? Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Jimmy Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Stan Musial. And Jim Rice, in that class, is not a Hall of Famer because he didn’t like the media.Where the hell did this come from? This media thing? And you just used a lot of statistics to make an argument for a HOFer, and to prove that people who use statistics have the wrong idea about the HOF. I'm so tired.
Jim Rice is a borderline HOFer because yes, he dominated for a while, and no, he didn't last quite long enough to put up the same career #'s as other people. He is the definition of borderline.
So, it’s already a complete charade. That the home run – the hit king is not in, even though baseball embraces gambling money, casino money – watch a Yankees game. Foxwoods casino. Mohegan Sun. Well, is gambling good, or is gambling bad? It’s already a charade, it’s already full of hypocrisy. So why not let Jose Canseco in? He is the most relevant guy – I’m talking relevant, impactful guy, next to Pete Rose, not in the hall.Weirdly, this argument may have the most weight. Again, if he had made this argument -- or, rather, a more coherent version of it -- from the beginning...well, I wouldn't be typing this. Because maybe what he is saying is, maybe the HOF should just be a place where all sorts of people are enshrined -- bad people, good people, great players, cheats, scoundrels, etc. (Of course, the massive flaw in this argument is that you could have all sorts of exhibits that recognize things like the Black Sox scandal and Canseco and whatever without actually inducting them into the HOF as players
qua players. But whatever.) I don't personally agree with that argument, but it could be an argument, I guess. "The Baseball Hall of Fame has become Nerd World in Orlando" is not an argument.
All discussion of Baseball HOF candidacy, at some level, is subjective. That is why we use the horrid nerd tools of "data" and "analysis" -- to minimize the subjective aspect of it, and to try to establish solid criteria that can stretch across generations. Baseball, more than any other sport, absolutely demands to be analyzed statistically, due to the nearly infinite number of categories of things that happen. Other sports have, like, "goals" and "assists." Baseball, wonderfully, has singles, doubles, triples, walks, HR, K's, ERA, W/L, OPS-against, WHIP -- massive amounts of information that players stockpile and accumulate over thousands and thousands of at-bats, over dozens of years, in irregularly-shaped ballparks.
Baseball, among its many other gifts, gives us numbers. The least we can do is pay attention to them.
I don't even know if my commentary has any cohesion. It's so effing long, I can't even go back and read it. So I'll just let Colin sign off, and then I'll go to sleep for fifteen hours.
ESPN Radio, presented by the new AT&T, Dan Patrick is next. This has been "The Herd," on ESPN Radio.Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Labels: colin cowherd, naughty by nature
Hi, everyone. How are you. Good? Awesome. I'm good too. But enough small talk. I'd like to meta-discuss an email I got in some form or another from several persons who shall remain gallimaufry-nameless, after I posted this (in re: should Don Mattingly be inducted into the Hall of Fame of Baseball Players):
Don Mattingly gets into the Hall of Fame, I quit. Everything. I quit everything. He is nowhere close to being in the ballpark of being in the discussion of people who might possibly begin to be considered as potential people who might someday be on a long list of people who should be considered as people who might someday be considered to one day be part of the discussion of who are the players who maybe should be thought about as potential people who might one day be considered by the Committee to Discuss People Who Should Maybe Be Thought Of As Potential Hall of Famers Someday.
I will distill the emails I got into one general email, which went something like this:
Dear Ken,
You are a douche. Mattingly is awesome. Look at this [statistical evidence that shows that Don Mattingly was awesome.] Don Mattingly is at least as good as [man who is in the Hall of Fame]. Don't you think you should apologize to Don Mattingly, his parents, me, my friends, and everyone who has ever read your blog? I do. I think your post was a poorly-baked soufflé.
And for the record I don't even care that much about Don Mattingly qua Don Mattingly -- I just wanted to point out that you are wrong.
Sincerely,
Butch_Wynegar85@cottoneyejoe.utzpotatochips.bleachercreature.yes-network.tv
Let me say a couple things. First of all, .tv? Get a real email address, am I right? Second, nice use of "qua," hypothetical distilled amalgam man. Third, thanks for the soufflé mention -- food metaphor tag! And fourth, here's the thing:
Don Mattingly had some excellent baseballing years. But to me, a few excellent baseballing years does not get you into the Hall of Fame. It just doesn't. You have to be one of the very very best players in the game for a very long time. You have to be
extraordinary. You have to get lucky and avoid injuries, yes, but once you avoid them, you have to excel, and you have to excel
for a very long time. Mattingly just didn't play well enough, long enough. He just didn't. Neither, I think, did Jim Rice. Or Albert Belle. Jesus -- go look at
Albert Belle's numbers from 1992 to 1998. The guy had a 193 OPS+ one year. He had 100 XBH in a season. He was a
monster. He was to Mattingly what Mattingly was to Luis Polonia. But here's the thing: he was out of baseball at 33 because of injuries. So...he doesn't quite make it.
And yes, there's Kirby Puckett. (Shows you what some high-profile postseason moments do for you.) And yes, there's also like Phil Rizzuto and people like that whose numbers stink. But in my mind, you don't judge someone's candidacy based on "Who is the worst player currently in the HOF, and is Player X better than he?" If you judge any candidate for anything based on the lowest standards necessary for inclusion, you can keep finding reasons to include more and more people who might have one or two statistical categories that get their heads above those categorical waterlines, even if their overall package does not, and then you just keep re-centering the mean criteria lower and lower, and soon you have what
Colin Cowherd would probably call a "Hall of Very Good." (And nobody wants Colin Cowherd to be right.)
In my opinion, you just base it on: do Player X's numbers show that he was one of the very best players in the game
for a long time? Because there are a lot of guys who excel for 1-3 years and then kind of fade away. And the Hall should be reserved for the ones who don't fade away. Or, alternately, the guys whose careers were cut short for some tragic reason, but who were so insanely amazing at baseball -- so utterly and completely dominant -- that you cannot deny their outrageous shining brilliance. This is not Don Mattingly.
I would also point out that the criteria for inclusion should focus on the player's position, as well. It is a far tougher thing to be a dominant starting pitcher or great SS for ten years than it is to be a great first baseman. (If Pedro Martinez never threw another pitch after the 2002 season, it would have been hard to deny him entry.)
Anyway, this is almost certainly going to result in more emails from people who take umbrage at my nebulous reasoning. But I haven't found any dumb articles recently, and I had to do something to get rid of the increasingly shameless plugs for that poll thingy.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Labels: albert belle, don mattingly, food metaphors, hall of fame
It's a cloudy, muggy Sunday afternoon here in Partridge, KS., getting up to 88 later, and it looks like it might pour any second. Normally, this would be fine with me, as I would just sit in my den and watch baseball for ten hours. Except: today, Fremulon Ins., Inc. has called me into the office.
Emergency restructuring of the pension plans, thanks to ripples sent through our investment portfolio due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Booooo-ring. After a couple hours of research, I think to myself I think, "What am I doing working so hard? It's Sunday, for land's sake!" So I open my FJM e-mail, and voila: the perfect distraction. I find a little piece of heaven linked from reader Matthew. It's by a delightfully spry old cooter named Jerry Green, from the Detroit
News, who has a bone to pick. Jerry wants to know:
What ever happened to hitting homers for the team?
A quick search of the ol' memory banks, and the baseball rules contained therein, will remind us that the points, or "runs," that are granted to the team of a player who hits a home run out of selfishness, egotism, and Ayn Randian self-interest will exactly equal the points his team gets if he goes deep, like, altruistically. So, already a bit confused, let's read on to see what has Jerry's panties in a bunch.
The digital clock over the TV is pushing toward 11 in the p.m., ticking toward bedtime, and on the color screen there goes another shot. Deep, deep, going gone.
I am not usually one to make fun of older people. But in this, the very first paragraph of an article on baseball in the year 2007, Jerry sees fit to specifically mention that his clock is digital, and his television has a "color" screen. When was the last time anyone regularly watched non-color TV? The only reason one might go out of one's way to mention that one's screen is colorized is if, subconsciously, this fact is still kind of a big deal. (And what are you doing watching baseball highlights at 11:00 anyway, Jerry? The Steve Allen Show is on soon.)
"He went yard," shouts the announcer, using for the 15th time in the last 10 minutes ESPN's favorite network-contrived cliché for the old-fashioned home run.
I yawn. Again.
It is the fifth time I have seen this same home run, er, yard shot, in the last 23 minutes.
Too bad Michigan law mandates that you have to keep watching it.
Alas, I am too dazed to push that little silver escape button, the off gizmo, and retire to my current book.
Again. I have nothing against old people. Many of my best friends are old people. My college roommate was an old person. But when you overexplain, in print, what a "remote control" is, and refer to it as a "gizmo," you (a) are playing up how old and crotchety you are as a badge of honor, (b) are just too old to remember where the "delete" key is on your keyboard, or (c) are Andy Rooney.
I am part of the vast captive audience. There is no escape. There is no mercy.
...There is "changing the channel," isn't there?
My ankles are locked, my eyelids are drooping, but I can barely drag myself to the sack.
These things happen. Calcium chews and multivitamins will help.
I am victim of our pop sports culture.
ESPN believes that it invented the home run.
We have been fed this summer a steady dose of milestones.
Sammy Sosa's 600th home run.
Alex Rodriguez's 500th home run.
Barry Bond's 754th, 755th, 756th, 758th, and onward, home runs.
One might argue that we haven't been "fed" these things, so much as they have "happened." And are "of interest." To people who "like sports."
Over and over, while we remain prisoners.
The other night, honest, Karl Ravech, the moderator of ESPN's Baseball Tonight show, had a segment: "The best three things and the worst three things that happened since Bonds' 754th home run." This followed: "The Minnesota Twins are 6 and 2 since Bonds' 754th home run."
This a day after Bonds surpassed Henry Aaron's home-run record with No. 756.
I am no fan of ESPN these days. They do a lot of incredibly stupid segments that have nothing to do with sports coverage, like "Who's Now?" and "Getttin' Heavy" and "NASCAR Hip-Hop Thunder!" and "Which Sandwich?" But after months of research I have devised a way to avoid these irritants: don't watch them.
E -- Embarrassing!
S -- Silly!
P -- Puerile!
N -- Nonsensical!
Man. You really went for it here, didn't you, Jerry. I bet you wish you could take this back. I mean, you put each one of these things on a different line, and punctuated with exclamations. You have a lot of confidence in this humor trope.
And I remain in captivity, addicted to the pre-dreamtime baseball scores and TV images.
Reading is an option. The internet also provides sports information. Did you read Tim Page's first-person account of Asberger's Syndrome in the New Yorker this week? Fascinating, I thought.
I have become immune to the season's most imaginative newspaper headline: "Bonds homers; Giants lose."
Again. And again.
Bonds! Sosa! A-Rod!
What does it mean?
Riddle me this -- in this whacky, over-hyped world of sound bytes and yard shots, what has any one of them ever won in Major League Baseball?
Buckle up, people. Things are about to get crotchety.
With all their home runs, with their vast millions in salary, with their adoring fans, at least in their home ballparks, when has any one of them ever helped a team win a pennant or a World Series championship?
Allow me, quickly, to remind Jerry of a few things.
1. There are eight position players, five starting pitchers (usually) and several relievers on a baseball team. They play 162 games per year, then between one and three playoff series in an attempt to win the World Series. Teams have vastly different payroll thresholds, and every year they contend with injuries, fluctuations in performance, and the relative strength of the other teams in their division. One man, no matter how good, cannot single-handedly win a championship in a team sport.
Bonds played on one pennant winner in his 21-plus seasons. The Giants lost that World Series. But Bonds hit four home runs -- for the loser.
What a bad baseball player he is. He would be better if he had hit zero home runs for the winner. Logic!
His Pirates and Giants went 2-7 in various postseason ventures. Barry Bonds has hit more home runs than any other athlete in 131 years of Major League Baseball. But he is tied with thousands and thousands of lesser athletes in total World Series victories: 0. Zero, zilch.
He is also tied with Ernie Banks and Ted Williams. Frank Thomas won a World Series with the ChiSox in 2005, despite having only 105 AB during the season and not even being on the postseason roster. Does that make him superior to Barry Bonds in some way? It's a team sport, dumbass. And some people play for shitty teams.
Sosa has never played for a pennant winner nor a World Series team in 18 big league seasons. He appeared in the postseason twice. The Cubs went 1-2 in three series. They almost won a pennant one recent October, but perpetuated their series of failures since 1945.
Sosa's fault. All Sosa's fault. The nerve of Sammy Sosa to have prevented/never helped the Cubs win a World Series since 1908. If I am not mistaken -- and I don't believe I am -- it was Sosa who interfered with the foul pop that Alou might have caught in that NLCS game in Wrigley in 2003. I believe it was also Sosa who botched that easy grounder later in the inning. (I've always wondered -- why was he playing SS? Alex Gonzalez was a gold glover!!!) And why did Sosa pitch so terribly in Game 7 when Kerry Wood was rested and ready to go? If I were a Cubs' fan, I would hate Sammy Sosa, because he never single-handedly won a World Series.
A-Rod has been a dismal flop in his ventures into the postseason in his previous 13 seasons with the Mariners, Rangers and Yankees.
Frequent readers of this web-log might remember that I have a particular bee in my bonnet in re: people claiming ARod is an Untrue Yankee because he has "failed" in the postseason where far superior players like Chad Curtis and Scott Brosius have succeeded. But now, now we have a whole new ballgame.
Jerry is claiming, and I quote, that "A-Rod has been a dismal flop in his ventures into the postseason in his previous 13 seasons with the Mariners, Rangers and Yankees." If you will please excuse my language: Fuck the heck are you talking about?
I will first point out that the Rangers did not make the postseason while he was there. A point you might have made to help strengthen your flaccid argument, if you'd spent less time fidgeting with doo-dads and whatnots and focussed more on checking information to see if your wild and idiotic claims had any veracity.
Second. Here's what ARod did as a Mariner in 13 postseason game (not counting 1995, when he had 1 AB each in 2 games):
18-51
3 BB
3 2b
3 HR
8 RBI
That's a .352/.388/.588 line. That's a .976 OPS. That's a dismal flop.
The only time you can truly call ARod a postseason dismal flop was last year in the ALDS against Detroit, when he went 1-14 with nary a double to call his own. Yes. Dismal flop. Second would be the previous year's 2-15 against the Halos, but he was walked six times and thus had a .381 OBP. Which ain't bad. But here's the point:
Joe Dimaggio went 2-18 in the 1949 WS (.111/.238/.278).
Pujols put up an almost identical line in the 2001 NLDS.
In 1950, Phil Rizzuto (RIP) went 2-14, .143/.294/.143.
Should I keep going? Okay.
1922 World Series. Picture it. Giants-Yankees. Roaring Twenties. Jazz! Babe Ruth knocks 2 sweet hits in 17 tries, Sultanly Swatting at the rate of .118/.250/.176. Or how's this: in the 1977 ALCS against Kansas City, Mr. October himself went 2-16 with no extra base hits, non-dismal-flopping his way to a .125/.222/.125 line.
In fact, lets just go ahead and do this:
Mr. October, career, in October: .278/.358/.527. One HR every 15.6 AB
Mr. Dismal-Flop, career, in October: .280/.362/.485. One HR every 22 AB
Jackson's totals are more impressive when you consider he has more than twice the AB, and many more HR, and so on and so forth. But the original comparison is valid, thanks to its very invalidity. What do I mean? I mean that the whole exercise of looking at one (or even two, or three) postseason series is stupid.
They are tiny sample sizes of data, that can be cherry picked at will to make any point you want. That's why Mark Lemke is a postseason legend, but a sub-par overall Major Leaguer, once the number of data points increased and his true talent level shone through. It's why Marty Barrett at one time shared the record for hits in a postseason series. The smaller the number of AB, the higher the possibility that something crazy happens, like ARod going 1-14.
Want to claim ARod is a choker, even just as a member of the Yankees? Cite his last two series, which were bad. I will counter with the 2004 ALDS against the Twinkies, where he went 8-19 with three doubles and a homer, going .421/.476/.737.
(Once again. I hate Alex Rodriguez. And I am spending my entire Sunday looking up Reggie Jackson's postseason hitting stats just to prove that Alex Rodriguez is good. My boss is going to be pissed. I am pissed.)
He has never played for a pennant winner, never has had one at-bat in a World Series. The teams he has played for went 3-6 in postseason series.
All his fault.
That adds up to an astonishing sum of nearly 1,900 home runs among them without a single championship.
But did they go yard a lot! With worthless home runs.
Home runs are never worthless. They are always worth between one and four runs. And without those 1900 home runs, it is fair to say that their teams would have had many fewer postseason games, and thus many fewer chances to reach the World Series.
These three guys are worthy of Hall of Fame selection whenever they turn eligible, Bonds and Sosa accompanied perhaps by asterisks.
For the record, Babe Ruth played for 10 pennant winners and seven World Series winners in 22 seasons. The Babe is unmatched with 15 World Series home runs with the Yankees, and a 3-0 record as a pitcher with the champion Red Sox.
When Babe Ruth played baseball, there were two leagues, and thus two playoff teams. If you won the league, you played in the World Series. And since Babe's team also featured many other Hall of Famers -- both pitchers and position players -- he played in the World Series a lot. And since baseball was segregated, and not international, he did not play against the best possible competition. And so on and so on and so on.
Babe might have been the best hitter ever. His OPS+ is 207. But comparing his WS stats to anyone's from the Divisional Era -- never mind the Wild Card era -- is stupid on stilts.
Ruth, the home-run master, was the consummate winner.
Too bad ESPN was not in business to capture the wondrous exploits as "The Babe went yard," on its Baseball Tonight show.
What are you even complaining about? Babe Ruth was the ultimate showman. He partied harder than anyone. He was all about celebrity. If BBTN were around in the 1920s, Babe would have had his face in front of those cameras 24/7. He would've had his own reality show. He would've been cutting every deal he could to milk extra $$$ out of the MLB $$$ deals with whoever. And he would've had a lot of venereal diseases.
Also for the record, Kirk Gibson contributed immeasurably to victory in two World Series with home runs. He never has been close to enshrinement in Cooperstown.
Because there is no category for "Best Dramatic Performance in the Postseason in the Smallest Possible Sample Size of One AB." I'm pretty sure some memento of that AB (the ball is lost, I think, but Vin Scully's radio call on tape, or something) is in the Hall. Apparently, like Colin Cowherd, you cannot differentiate between permanent enshrinement for career achievement, and enshrinement for famous moments.
Bobby Thomson hit a home run for the New York Giants to win the best pennant race in history, in 1951. He is not in the Hall of Fame. Bill Mazeroski hit a home run to win a World Series for the Pirates. He reached the Hall of Fame belatedly in the veteran's category, based on his fielding skills. Joe Carter won a World Series with a home for the Blue Jays. Joe has no chance ever to reach the Hall of Fame.
Joe Carter's career OPS+ is 104. You think he should be in the Hall of Fame? (I know he's not really saying that, but it's implied.)
But all of them "went yard" when it mattered.
Yes they did. Good for them. Wonderful moments. The rich tapestry of sports, and so on. What are we talking about, again?
The Embarrassing, Silly, Puerile, Nonsensical all-sports (poker? spelling bees?) network has an amazing influence on its captive audience.
True dat.
America has been led to believe that A-Rod is having the best season of any ballplayer currently playing.
...He is. Except for maybe H-Ram, to whom he's second in VORP, though ARod has a higher MLVr. See for yourself.
Therefore, the current hot debate with the Tigers competing in New York this weekend is the American League's most valuable player competition.
A-Rod is being championed as the shoo-in for the MVP. He leads MLB in home runs and RBIs.
Other things ARod is beating Magglio in:
VORP
OPS
Win Probability Added
RC
SecA
IsoP
EQR
Though Magglio has him in EqA, .333 to .332.
There is this bit of news for the great unwashed:
Magglio Ordonez hits home runs that win ball games.
Well, shit. Because ARod hits the kind that cause Peruvian earthquakes and give kids diseases.
He hits singles and doubles that contribute to winning ball games.
Dammit. I had no idea. ARod only hits the kind of singles that earn him, personally, money, which he uses to invest in blood diamond mines in Africa. And ARod's doubles -- besides taking runs off the board from his team -- are converted into energy that powers a rec center for Aryan nation youth gangs.
He hit a home run last October that won a pennant and sent his team into the World Series.
ARod sucks. Because he has never been placed in this exact situation and come through in exactly the same way. Robin Ventura is way better than ARod.
Ordonez happens to be immeasurably more valuable to his team than A-Rod is with all his fluff and flourishes, flubs and superfluous home runs.
There are any number of statistics I could use to prove you wrong, but I will actually just repeat what has been implied, and what is self-evident, if you think long and hard about what you just wrote and published:
You are stupid, sir. This is a stupid thing to say.
They are both extremely valuable to their teams. To imply that ARod is less valuable because he, I guess, hits more home runs, but has never exactly hit a home run that won a pennant for his team...I mean...that is just...farty. That is farty writing. That writing smells like farts.
Okay. Back to work. Hey! It's 7:30! Quittin' time!
Labels: arod, fremulon insurance, fuck the heck, jerry green, magglio ordonez
