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Duke and the Charlie Brown Coefficient

Duke and the Charlie Brown Coefficient:

With Duke Snider's passing this weekend, there's been a lot of discussion of the three great New York centerfielders of the 1950s - the famous 'Willie, Mickey, and the Duke' trio. And with good cause: Snider was a great player who, for better or worse, will always be tied to those two all-time greats. The fact that he wasn't the equal of Mays or Mantle is no blemish on his fine career.

There is at least one other metric that we can use to compare the three centerfielders that I think many have neglected. We'll call it the 'Charlie Brown Coefficient.'

As you recall, the Peanuts comic strip was published daily from October 1950 until February 2000. In that time, nearly 18,000 strips were drawn, with a full 10% featuring baseball in some way. The height of the strip - and of its baseball fandom - came in the 1960s, though the late-1950s and early-1970s saw their fair share of top-notch strips. That also happened to be the era of Willie, Mickey, and the Duke. How often, then, were each of the three centerfielders mentioned by Charlie Brown and friends?"

The answer won't surprise you, as Larry Granillo notes, Charles Schulz lived in Northern California.

It's about time MJ did something nice for Portland -- he's been haunting the Trail Blazers for three decades much like Stevie Nicks haunted Lindsey Buckingham.

via sports.espn.go.com

I love Bill Simmons.

The Mechanic's Gay Panic

As the Times has just pointed out, ESPN is a main disseminator of the Man Code. It’s how you know it’s okay to keep bringing up the Roethlisberger rape allegations as a way to root for your team, sure, but it’s also a place that “legitimize[s] male preening”—all for the perfectly Male-Code-loyal cause of sport, you see. Athlete beefcake shots as an appreciation of athleticism, fashion spreads that teach one how to be a man.

At least that’s what’s said. ESPN’s embrace of Roethlisberger for the cause of the Man Code, or the sequence in this Statham movie—whose Transporter franchise regularly featured our hero going into elaborate striptease routines either in the midst of beating up other dudes or just for funsies—are reactions.

via www.theawl.com

Brrrrrrrinnnggg! Matt Ealer is ringing my bell!

First! Please remember how great Transporter 3 is:

It’s been a long time since a new movie has been so spiritually and aesthetically exhilarating. Producer Luc Besson, director Olivier Megaton and star Jason Statham work at the top of their imagination and abilities—not like they’re completing a formulaic sequel but reinventing the action movie genre.

This Roethlisberger stuff is out of control. I was astonished how brazen and anti-woman the "debate" around Roethlisberger was as we approached last week's Super Bowl. Rape jokes were everywhere, and none of them ended in a conviction. I've been asking a few people I respect to blog about this, but for whatever reason no one wants to touch it. Ealer goes there and connects the text to The Mechanic's acts of violence:

The way to say “no homo” in sports broadcasting rather than rap music is to embrace a rapist. The way to do it in an action movie is to pantomime killing someone with a screwdriver.

That's good blogging!

Statham knows how to pick movies, apparently, because it sounds like he's found himself in another keeper. Or do screenwriters just go after him when an action movie's subtext hits Defcon 5 (or however high defcon goes?) There are a lot of spoilers in that review, but I'm not sure this is a plot driven movie. I'm also not sure Statham is that smart,

Ask Matty or Anil about Crank(s) sometime.

"We're not doing our jobs if we let it slide"

Rob Neyer once alienated a colleague by commenting on his story instead of addressing him directly:

Without meaning to, over the years I'd annoyed most of my other colleagues ... and nearly all of them with reputations as incredibly nice guys. So I figured it must be me. I hastily e-mailed this particular colleague to apologize.

His response: "Rob, no problem at all. I just thought the comments section was for them, not for us."

This isn't the place to enumerate the differences, for most of my career anyway, between me and the great majority of baseball writers in the mainstream media. They did finally let me into the Baseball Writers Association of America a few years ago, which I appreciated, plus (did I mention this?) they really are a bunch of really nice guys. And I'm not making value judgments here.

One difference, though, is that I've never thought of myself as a member of us rather than them.

I've been reading Rob Neyer for 15 years, since he started at ESPN. If he's not the most influential baseball writer not named Gammons or James, he's close. Today he's moving to SBNation from ESPN, where he lays out the "First Principles"

Nobody's got a monopoly on good writing, or the facts. If you can come up with one or the other or (ideally) both, you're in the club. That's one of the First Principles.

Another First Principle is that there shouldn't be any sacred cows. Not here. If Derek Jeter's not playing well, we have to point that out because it's our job. If we know reasonable people who think Albert Pujols might be a year or three older than we've been told, we have to point that out. If people we like personally have written things that don't make sense ... Well, it gets tricky but we're not doing our jobs if we let it slide.

I never would have imagined that football or stories centered around
football in a small Texas town would be something that would bring me
on the verge of emotional breakdown on a regular basis. In my
experience, few things have been able to capture the feelings I have
of my home state, but I have to give it to the team at FNL, they
really have hit the nail on the head.

Being a transplant from Texas has its pluses and deltas for a guy
living in Brooklyn, NY. Texas has always had its mystique of
badassedness and I've never been want to play along. I think, as a
dramatical story, while maybe FNL struggles to portray the realities
of high school footballers or any real football teams as I've heard
some express, it does a phenomenal job at expressing the complexity of
Texas politic and persona.

via realdillon.posterous.com

Wonderful post from Wayne (of the also wonderful Surlee Voyage) about watching Friday Night Lights in the Texas diaspora.

Jeter

In December 1956, the Brooklyn Dodgers not only traded Jackie Robinson, but traded him to the Giants. If that can happen, it isn't impossible that we could see Jeter playing for the Los Angeles Dodgers -- or even the Boston Red Sox.

Months after breaking the all-time home run record, the Atlanta Braves traded Henry Aaron to the Milwaukee Brewers. Two years earlier, in May 1972, the San Francisco Giants traded Willie Mays to the New York Mets.

In football, another great Core Four -- the San Francisco 49ers of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Roger Craig and Ronnie Lott -- were all let go by the organization that made each player famous and was made famous by them.

The Chicago Bulls won the 1998 NBA title and then said goodbye to Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the coach, Phil Jackson, who has won five more titles (so far) since he left the Bulls.

via sports.espn.go.com

Me, I'll always remember Jeter for the Jeffrey Maier moment. I still believe there's an alternative reality featuring the Orioles dynasty of the late 90s, if only that little shit had kept his glove out of the field of play. So, why not:

Here are the rest of the Jeters.

Jamie Gooden, or Dwight Moyer

So here's what Dwight Gooden did up through his Age 29 season:

157-85, 3.10 ERA over 2169.2 innings with 651 walks and 1875 strikeouts.

And here's what Jamie Moyer has done from his Age 30 season onward:

233-150, 4.17 ERA over 3320.1 innings with 855 walks and 1970 strikeouts.

Overall, if we fuse those two half-careers together into one imaginary guy, we get the following line:

390 wins, 235 losses, 3.75 ERA over 5,490 innings with 1,506 walks and 3,845 strikeouts.

This mythical pitcher would be 3rd all-time in wins and 18th in losses. He'd be 4th in innings pitched, 12th in walks, and 5th in strikeouts.

Incidentally, these two half-careers overlap in 1993 (when Moyer was in his Age 30 season) and 1994 (when Gooden was in his Age 29 season).

via www.baseball-reference.com

So hurtful.

BillSimmons on the Color Purple, and his Daughter Becoming a Lakers Fan

So you can imagine my horror at one of her Saturday soccer games last month, when she noticed the uniforms of a rival team and marveled, "Daddy, look at those! I wish that was our color!"

I looked at the uniforms.

Purple.

And not even normal purple ... Lakers purple. With gold in them. They looked like Lakers uniforms disguised as girls' soccer uniforms, which meant every brunette on the team kind of looked like Sasha Vujacic.

I took a second to pull my tongue out of my throat.

"Those are purple, honey," I said. "Our family hates purple."

"That's not true, Daddy. I love purple. Purple is my favorite color."

This was quickly turning a disaster. Frantic, I glanced around and noticed a team with green uniforms. They weren't Celtics green, but close enough.

"What about those?" I said.

"I hate green," she said, punctuating the words with a grimace.

"You hate green?"

"I HATE green."

Gulp.

Look, every father constantly worries about their daughter. That's just what we do. I worry that she's a promising athlete (and she is) but a head case (and she is). In the span of 10 minutes in soccer, she can break up two opposing goals, set up a goal of her own, then inexplicably walk off as the game is happening because she's thirsty and/or suffered a fake foot injury that she's decided to milk. She's like Vince Carter with pigtails.

via sports.espn.go.com

I am scared to death that Lev will grow up a Yankees, not a Mets, fan. There are Yankees fans everywhere.

In case you don't read the whole article (I don't blame you!), here are the best three sentences: "Blood trumps water. Fathers are blood. Cities are water." Well done, BillSimmons!

Now that Michael Vick is having an eye-bugging season for the Philadelphia Eagles -- 11 touchdowns, zero interceptions, four starts, four wins, one Monday Night jersey sent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame -- it seems to only have torqued off dog lovers worse.

"If it were up to me, they would have locked him up and thrown away the key," blogged Sumo Pop recently.

As if 18 months in Leavenworth, and six more in a halfway house, aren't punishment enough.

"Michael Vick should give half of his ... salary to animal rights groups," Liz McGowin wrote on PETA.org.

As if losing $100 million and three years in the prime of his career wasn't steep enough.

"Michael Vick is a Sociopathic Dog-Torturing, Dog-Maiming, Dog-Drowning, Dog-Electrocuting Pile of S---," somebody posted on Vick's Twitter page Thursday. Vick's Twitter page was running about half against him this week -- until it was frozen for "suspicious activity."

The man is contrite. He is humbled. He is chastened. He has already given 24 speeches for the Humane Society. He has dismissed his old friends, has even run from them when they show up. What else is he supposed to do? Move into a dog kennel himself?

As if being judged and humiliated in front of the world isn't shame enough.

via sports.espn.go.com

I don't particularly like Rick Reilly, but I am glad the "Forgive Michael Vick" sentiment is reaching the mainstream.

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Whichever team is on offense Saturday will head toward the west [left] end zone.

via sports.espn.go.com

How is this going to work? What if an interception is being run back for a touchdown?