I Know It's Not that Funny About The Celts, But It's Kinda Funny

This was the headline on Boston.com immediately following the draft selection:

BREAKING SPORTS NEWS: The Celtics were awarded the fifth pick in the NBA Draft. The lowest the Celtics could have slipped to in the NBA Lottery was the No. 5 spot.

That quote is the "Cellar Door" of sports headlines. I don't think you can craft a summary more simply stated that captures perfectly what happened last night. It captures the exact mood of the pick for those that don't know how the lottery works with the "were awarded" part but also makes clear just how bad of luck it was that they got that pick. Perfection. Honestly, Celts fans can't feel too badly for themselves. I mean, at least they'll get Spencer Hawes. He'll fit in perfectly with next year's lottery selection of Chase Buddinger.

Wow! Wallace Matthews is NOT a Fan of Tim Wakefield's Style of Play

Wally was not too keen on having to watch baseball after 10 O'clock last night.
If you read the NY Post as much as I try to, you've probably stumbled upon the Post's resident sports critic, Phil Mushnick. His schtick is acting like a crotchety old man who complains about EVERYTHING and yearns for the days of yore. In Mushnick's world we'd be shooting free throws underhand, everyone would talk like Walter Kronkite and gas would be a nickel. Think Joe Morgan with the ability to formulate a sentence. It is a painful read but he's good at it and it can be pretty funny. He gets a lot of attention for his comments but strangely his position has not been copied by the notoriously unoriginal NY sports media market (unless you consider the ESPN.com ombudsman of a similar ilk). Well I think Wallace (formerly "Wally") Matthews of New York Newsday is beginning to mow Mushnick's lawn.

In Newsday today, Matthews launches a bizarre and rather hostile rant at Tim Wakefield of all people in a style that could best be described as Mushnickian. Matthews doesn't just rip Wakefield, he makes him out to be one of the worst pitchers ever and basically makes him responsible for all that is wrong with baseball, literally:

"Wakefield may very well be the least entertaining player ever to appear in a major-league uniform....

There's nothing remotely entertaining about watching big-league hitters stand rock still in the box, waiting for the ball to make its interminable trip from Wakefield's hand to home plate, then rock back on their heels to swing for Westchester County. At that point, the game crosses over into the realm of beer-league softball....

At 40 years old, Wakefield might not be quite ready to retire, but it certainly is time to retire his reputation as a Yankees killer.... In October, he's done more for this franchise than Alex Rodriguez....

His knuckleball, or whatever you want to call it, is a bigger menace to the game than steroids, growth hormone or Clomid will ever be....

What I want to know is, how in the world has Wakefield been able to draw a major-league paycheck since 1992 with the kind of stuff you generally see at a family barbecue?

....So before you start to think that the Yankees, who have now won two straight, are back to normal, here's one bit of advice: Now, let's see them do it against a major-league pitcher.

....If the commissioner of baseball truly wants to get to the bottom of one of the great mysteries of his game, he can shelve the steroid investigation and start looking into how Tim Wakefield has managed to get away with his act for the past 15 years."

EZ there Wally. Couple things:
1. Wakefield was probably a top 5 Cy Young Candidate before his last two starts, had an ERA in the low 2's coming into the game and still has a lower ERA than any starter in the Yanks rotation outside of Pettitte.

2. In the 2003 postseason (the Aaron Boone year), he went 2-1 against the Yanks, with a 2.57 ERA and would've been the MVP of the series. The next year, he volunteered to take one for the team and hop in a blowout so as not to stress the bullpen. If I remember correctly, that worked out ok.

3. When was Wake labeled a "Yankees Killer"? Jeter hits like .800 off of him and A-Rod kills him. The broadcast started off last night by noting that the Yanks were 6-1 against him in their last 7 games.

4. Wakefield may throw a slow pitch, but his style is no slower than anyone elses. Wakefield's game is no slower than Schilling's or Tyle Clippard as he stomps around the mound for 5 minutes between pitches. You know what really slows up a game? When Torre makes 10 pitching changes before the 5th inning because he has completely lost his mind out there.

Lastly, did someone pee on your cheerios this morning? Where is all this angst coming from? This article was just confusing and angry. Leave the undserved scorn tossing to Mushnick. At least he picks people deserving of criticism.

(Picture above is not Wally Matthews)

This Chris Henry Situation Doesn't Make Any Sense

Enjoy pictures of Chris Henry like this one while you can, pretty soon they're gonna be as rare as the Narwhal.
So the Kenton County DA's office says Chris Henry failed a drug test and Henry's agent says he didn't. So which is it and how can there possibly be two different answers to a Yes/No question? Here's what I don't get about this Henry situation: Neither side has any incentive to lie about it. It's not like the truth is not easily available. The DA really can't lie about it. His job is kinda contingent on telling the truth (despite Mike Nifong's interpretation of the same job). And worst of all, the test results are available and public. It's not like he gains anything by coming out and saying that Henry tested positive. On the other side of the conversation, Henry's agent says he didn't fail and instead says that the first drug "field test" was innacurate (he compared the first test to a pregnancy test. The accuracy of which is about 97%) and the second test came up negative. He too doesn't really have any incentive to lie about it. He may fear that the Bengals will outright release Henry if this is true and may be trying to buy some time by publicly questioning the results, but that just seems highly unlikely. And now this mystery second test is with the state lab for further tests even though the DA's office doesn't acknowledge that the two tests came up with different results. So what the hell is actually going on? If the Kenton County DA's office screwed up this drug test--likely their most high profile drug test ever--what does it say about the rest of their operation there and how they're handling the overall Chris Henry situation? And more importantly, how exactly do they administer these drug field test? Do they come knock on Henry's door and make him pee on a testing device? Maybe Kentucky is just not good at handling these types of situations. Maybe they should just stick to what they're good at: creating overrated basketball programs and meth addictions.

Donyell is Not Steve Kerr

Do we kill Jordan if Kerr misses this shot?
First, you need to watch this clip all the way through. Kerr's speech at championship parade is frickin hysterical. He's a regular Sinbad; only Kerr's actually funny. I'll keep this short as the real NBA blogs are much better equipped to handle this discussion, but how can you possibly kill Lebby for passing it to Donyell for the wide open game winner last night? Lebby didn't get a single call going to the hole the entire night and there was NO WAY IN HELL he was going to get a call on that last play. He made the right pass to a guy who was 6-10 from three in the game that got them into the finals. Lebby was absolutely correct when he said it was a "game winning" play. But more importantly, when juxtaposed against Game 6 of the 1997 series, it is eery how similarly the two plays match except for the part where Kerr made his shot. And check out the words Kerr uses to describe how Jordan essentially made the play happen.

"When Phil drew up the play at the end," said Jordan, who had 39 points and 11 rebounds and was named Finals Most Valuable Player for the fifth time. "everybody in the gym, everybody on TV knew was coming to me. I looked at Steve and said, 'This is your chance,' because I knew Stockton is going to come over and help and I'm going to come to you. Tonight Steve Kerr earned his wings from my perspective."

Kerr, a shooting specialist, was giddy with excitement after clinching the title for Chicago. "He (Jordan) said, 'You be ready, Stockton is going to come off you.' I said, 'I'll be ready, I'll knock it down. He's so good that he draws so much attention. And his excellence gave me the chance to hit the game-winning shot in the NBA Finals. What a thrill. I owe him everything."

This is EXACTLY what Bronald did last night. Donyell just missed the shot. If he makes it, the tune we are singing about Lebby is night and day.

What Do Former Rock "god" Scott Stapp and The Jets' Justin Miller Have In Common Other Than Being Associated With A Group of Below Average Performers?

Jesus may kick ass but Scott Stapp kicks female ass.
Scott Stapp and Justin Miller had pretty solid weekends, if assaulting women is your idea of a good time. On Sunday, Stapp was arrested for allegedly hitting his wife, former Miss New York York Jaclyn Nesheiwat. Stapp has a history of getting his ass kicked by people so this story is not surprising considering he's probably just venting some pent up aggression on someone he has a 50/50 shot of beating up. Also, on Sunday in New York, the Jets' Justin Miller was arrested after he punched a woman in a nightclub. Allegedly, Miller, unlike Stapp, meant to hit some dude that this girl was with but missed when the guy ducked and hit the woman instead. Now Miller's behavior is bad and he will likely get suspended, but what about this chick's boyfriend? Shouldn't he suffer some repercussions for being a pussy? I know it's the heat of the moment and you don't want to get punched, but aren't you supposed to move in the way of a punch if it's going to hit your girlfriend rather than jump out of the way and let her get punched in the face by the jacked NFL player? If I'm Roger Goodell, I find some way to suspend that guy.

This Jason Giambi Situation is Infuriating on So Many Levels

If you think this guy is the enemy, you aren't paying close enough attention
Sometimes I really hate people. Jason Giambi's steroid 'admission' in USA Today has brought out my favorite of the sports media's many glaringly absurd coverage techniques: hypocrisy. I don't really want to spend too much time on this as I could write about it all day, but I do want to kinda bullet point the wrongness of what is going on with the coverage and reaction to his statements.

1. Hey idiots, THIS IS WHY HE COULDN'T SAY ANYTHING THE FIRST TIME
When Giambi "apologized" the first time, he got killed for not saying what he was sorry about. At that time, the criticism was that he was a coward for not explicitly coming out and saying he did it and it was wrong. So now, when he goes a little bit further, he gets killed by everyone for saying what he was supposed to say 2 years ago. And to top it all off, he could get suspended by MLB or possibly lose his contract because of it. So the media NOW says he's an idiot for saying anything. He can't win. I wish some friggin moron reporter who raked Giambi over the coals two years ago would have the guts to write an article that basically said, "Ohhhhhhhh, so that's why he couldn't say anything about what he meant in his apology in 2005. Sorry boot that, Jas."

2. Ummm, didn't we already know Giambi did steroids? Is this news?
I love how people are reacting to this like it's a big deal that Giambi did steroids. When I first heard about this story, I thought I was in the twilight zone or something. We already knew Giambi did steroids. Just like we know Bonds did (or does) anything that comes in a vial and can be injected into his ass. This is what got me so frustrated with the Schilling situation. Everyone condemns Bonds and Sheffield and Giambi for using steroids and disgracing the game, but then pretends like they are shocked when new information comes out. You can't sit on one side and say that the Bonds home run chase is the worst thing that has every happened to our planet in recordable history and then act surprised and disgusted when a player you already knew did steroids admits to doing steroids. Bud Selig has gone on record as saying he may not attend the record breaking home run game. He is likely not attending because of Bonds's steroids link. So if MLB knows about Giambi, Sheffield and Bonds's steroid use, why do they need to investigate Jason Giambi's comments? This should be the shortest investigation in history? I could run that investigation. You go up to Giambi, tell him that everything he says is off the record and he will be immune from any penalty because his offense happened before the most recent steroid rules and then ask him if he did steroids. When he says yes, your investigation is over. It's like finding out that Anderson Cooper is gay. Sweet. You just confirmed what everyone already knew.

3. Don't we want Giambi to apologize?
This is the last thing about this that upsets me, but Giambi is the ONLY one of the steroiders still playing who is willing to step up and tell people about it. Isn't that a good thing? Don't we want to encourage this type of behavior? I know we're all litigious and shit and want to limit liability and void contracts and cover your ass, but Giambi's frank talk on the subject should be cast as admirable if not heroic. Clearly he is aware of the potential consequences of saying anything on the matter. I mean, he's worth $100 million, he probably has a couple lawyers who have informed him of what he should and should not say about this. Giambi seems like he wants to just clear the air. It's killing him that he can't talk about this. Shouldn't we want him to? Shouldn't we let him? And shouldn't we be thankful that he's not a narcissistic prick who wants us to feel bad for the way he's being portrayed? And most of all, if we are killing Jason Giambi for speaking up, by that logic shouldn't we be praising Bonds for not opening his mouth? Giambi just wants to get it out in the open and move on. Isn't that why MLB launched the Mitchell investigation? Isn't that what everyone wants? I'd like to move on. So you know what, I'm gonna.

Fragile Fred Narrowlly Cheats Death and Still Has The Wherewithal To Insult Tom Coughlin

I can hear Fred's hamstring popping when I look at this picture
I'm getting the feeling that the "Final Destination" film series is loosely based on the life and times of The Fragile One. Fred Taylor's injury woes have been covered in detail and though none of them were life-threatening, they happened so frequently that it seemed as though something a little stranger than simple "bad luck" was going on. If you weren't convinced before, you may want to reconsider after Fred's recent trip to Africa. Fred was with Samari Rolle and Lito Sheppard on a tour of Africa when the door on the prop plane he was flying in broke open at around 6,000 feet, forcing an emergency landing attempt. I'm no aviation expert but even I know that when that happens, it's not good. Fred felt the same way, saying "I thought that was it," Taylor said Monday following the final day of Jacksonville's three-day minicamp. "I put my head down and started praying. The runway was about two miles away, but it seemed like it took 10 or 15 minutes to get there." Fortunately, as is clear by the fact that Fred is quoted after the fact, Fred and others survived the ordeal after a successful emergency landing. And best of all, the incident did little to sap him of his biting sense of humor and loathing of Tom Coughlin. In reflecting upon the incident, Fred noted, "it was the first time he felt like he was near death "'since I was playing for (coach Tom) Coughlin.'" It's ok to laugh about it now I guess, but I have the feeling destiny will get the last laugh.

Smittblog's Off To Miami

It's hard to belive but "Nash Bridges" used to be the biggest bad ass on the planet.
I'm out til Monday. Heading to South Beach for some sun, fun and beverages. I'd like everyone who reads this to go back through all my older posts and add a hilarious comment. Something REALLY hilarious. More specifically, I'm looking for suggestions for the All-Mediocre Pitching squad. The mediocre pitching crop is very deep.

Nah, Michael Strahan's Not Gay, He Just Goes on Dates With Guys Who... Pay... For... It....

Much was made of a comment made by Michael Strahan's wife during their very public and fairly nasty divorce proceedings regarding the "alternative lifestyle" that Strahan led when he moved in with his friend Ian after Jean and Michael Strahan decided they could no longer co-habitate. The tabloids ran the story on the front and back page and Strahan had to defend himself tooth and nail about it. This was not the first time Strahan had been accused of being gay. I've been calling him gay since around 1996. But the story didn't really have legs and his soon to be ex-wife retracted her statement and blah blah blah. Through it all, I never lost faith in Strahan's predilection for the male form and external genitalia (sorry, that was a little much I know). Well, he came through again, though this time it was not his "fault". Last week at Buddha Bar, Michael Strahan was auctioned off for a "date" and the proceeds were to benefit the Institute for Civic Leadership, a nonprofit educational organization. The auction was pretty successful and Strahan's bid pulled in $10,000. I'm sure he and THE TWO DUDES who won the auction will have an awesome time (the title of the Post article is "Men For Mike"):

May 16, 2007 -- GIANTS defensive end Michael Strahan put himself on the charity auction block the other night at Buddha Bar's first anniversary. He hoped to get a date with a lady, but the male sports fans in the crowd weren't having it. Two guys outbid 13 gals, leaving Strahan to agree to take both men to dinner for the price of $10,000 each.

The Post spins this story as a couple of crazy Giants fans who were hellbent on hanging out with their hero so they outbid the 13 young lovelies in the room for a chance to meet him. I would disagree. Anyone who has that kind of scratch to spend on an auction can afford to meet Strahan at a charity golf event or get VIP passes to any Giant event featuring Strahan and meet him there. If you spend 10G's to meet Strahan and you're a guy, you either REALLY want to "meat" Strahan, or Strahan has paid you to win the auction and make it seem like he just got unlucky because he didn't want to have to spend a night with a member of the opposite sex and would rather be involved in a leather clad three-way sexcapade with two of his "boys." Either way, I was as right in 1996 as Jean Strahan was in her divorce proceedings.

What Kind of Stuff Does Justin Verlander Have?

They put this stuff on celery down in Southern Jersey.
I always find it funny when baseball players are asked to describe the opposing pitcher after they've spent 7-9 innings swinging at air. The answers usually involve discussions about "stuff" or "spotting" of fastballs and/or "bite" of the offspeed pitches. You usually don't get much good material from these guys. Not yesterday. Apparently Justin Verlander's stuff was so good the Red Sox tried to break it down in terms we can easily understand. Like comparing it to our favorite canned dairy product:

"It's an easy hard," Mirabelli said of Verlander. "You see Beckett out there. You know he's throwing hard. This guy is fairly smooth and the ball just jumps out of his hand."

Smooth but not that smooth, Lowell said.

"A.J. Burnett has it, too," he said. "Verlander, I wouldn't say it's so easy, because he jumps at you. A.J. kind of has that slow, 'too cool for school' motion, and then boom.

"Verlander, he's thrusting it with some force at you. He's not trying to lull you to sleep. So I wouldn't say it's easy cheese, but it's cheese. Who cares?"

So to break down Verlander's pitching style, he's got a smooth delivery that is comparable to someone thrusting easy cheese at you at close to 100mph. Ewwwwww K....

Mike Hopkins to Take Over at 'Cuse In About 15 Years or So

By the time Boeheim hangs 'em up, this style will be popular again.
ESPN.com is is reporting that long-time assistant basketball coach, Mike Hopkins, will be named "successor" to Jim Boeheim if and when he chooses to retire at 'Cuse. That makes sense, I guess. For recruiting purposes it's always better to have continuity and familiarity as opposed to a frantic job search. I'm just not 100% sure why Mike Hopkins would agree to this. Boeheim isn't going to retire until he's 100. The Post-Standard wrote a piece about this possibility about 3 weeks ago and in that article Boeheim made it clear that he hasn't even considered retiring. He's only 62 years old and though he's been with the 'Cuse as a player or coach for 45 of those years, he is not the least bit tired of it. If he was going to leave, he probably would have when he had his twins a couple years ago so he could spend more time watching them grow up. He also doesn't really have any incentive to leave. He is past the point of moving on to the NBA or another program, the frickin Court is named after him and he will likely leave the game with the most victories ever and the worldwide representation as the greatest human on earth. The only way he leaves is for health reasons or if he loses all of his limbs (including his head) in a tragic Sea Doo accident (which I guess could be considered a health reason). Boeheim is a basketball junkie. He admits to staying up until 2am watching Pacific play San Diego St. on ESPN 7 and not because either team is on his schedule later in the year but because he LOVES college basketball. So it's not like he wakes up every morning and asks himself why he continues to do this. He can't see himself doing anything else. I mean, what else would he do? Jim Boeheim has been playing and coaching basketball for over 40 years straight; from the day he entered college until today. If he stopped coaching, what would he do with himself? I'm sorry Hopkins, I think you'll be a fine coach, but we may be flying around in Jetson-style spacecraft by the time you get that corner office.

He May Have Hands Like a Carny and Weep Like a Baby, But Jacoby Jones is The Type of Player You Want On Your Team

That's the rarely seen SIAC Offensive Player of The Year Trophy Ladies and Gents. And holding the trophy is Jacoby Jones wearing the even more rare blazer and ribbed t-shirt combo.
I love Wikipedia:

"The highly insular nature of carny society has fostered popular suspicions of inbreeding, supposedly manifested by a tendency towards small hands or thumbs."

As mentioned previously, there are several things that trouble me about the way in which players are evaluated and subsequently drafted by NFL teams. I've never really understood why chronic ne'er-do-wells like Mike Williams and Jerry Porter are selected ahead of guys with similar skill sets (similar in that these secondary players are big and can also run fast and jump high) despite the fact that these ne'er-do-wells have never tried hard in their entire lives because the game has come so easy to them. And then when they get to the NFL and they aren't coddled any longer and success requires a little more than just being a couple inches taller or a tenth of a second faster than everybody else, they fail because they don't have the discipline or drive to do what's required to become great. Not every great college player can have the discipline and drive of a guy like Larry Fitzgerald. Meanwhile you've got big, fast and strong guys from lesser schools who just want a shot. They're working out 3 times a day leading up to the draft just to have the chance to make a team. And when these guys get the chance to join a team, they stay after practice and take in every word and suggestion their position coach lays on them. Which brings me to my guy here, Jacoby Jones.

Jones played his college ball at Division II Lane College. And despite playing in the relative anonymity of D2 ball, he was invited to the East-West shrine game where he spent a week wowing the scouts with his 6'3" 210lb frame, sub 4.5 speed and ability to make tough catches before leading all receivers in the game with 4 receptions for 59 yards. Jones performance took on added significance after last season's top performer in the Shrine Game, Marques Colston, went on take offensive Rookie of The Year honors in the NFL last year. Despite this success, Jones was rated as a mid to late round pick and about the 15th-20th best receiver in the draft. The small school status was only one of the factors deflating Jones's draft status. He was also born with Carny hands ("They're complaining about my hand size," Jones said. "I have pretty small hands, I can't even palm a girls' basketball, but I can catch a football and that's all that should matter, right?"). So when he received the call from Texans GM Rick Smith, he can be forgiven if he was a little overwhelmed by the moment: "When I saw the 832 number come up when I opened my phone and when he said it was Mr. Smith, tears just started running out of my eyes. I just said, 'When do you want me there? I'm there." (When Jarrett got his call, his agent probably said, "We want first round money."). It's Jones's last statement that to me is why I would want a guy like Jones on my team. He still feels like he needs to prove himself. He's a third round pick and is almost guaranteed to make the team but he doesn't have that mindset. He's an underdog and will play like one probably for the bulk of his career. Not only is it endearing to the fans that the guy actually gives a shit, but it's a level of motivation and hunger that a player who's always been more talented than everyone else can't possibly understand or draw from. It is the absence of these relatively tangible qualities on the draft day cheat sheet that always leaves me scratching my head when 3 years down the road the more talented lazy player is cut because he's being outperformed by Wes Welker and the GM is just dumbfounded as to why his first round guy didn't pan out. Hunger and work ethic should be listed next to 40 time and vertical rather than be an throw-in quote from the guy's high school coach in an article written 4 weeks after the draft to fill copy.

Now Jacoby Jones may may never become great or even good because hard work and good technique can only take you so far, but if player is even close in terms of measurable skills, I'll take shots on 10 Jacoby Jones's before I take one Dwayne Jarrett.

Who's More Delusional: Packer Fans or Brett Favre?

I knew Packers fans were crazy but this really makes me laugh. Kansas Senator and Presidential hopeful (I guess that's what they're called) Sam Brownback was stumping in Packerland (I guess that's what that's called) and was trying to tie in some football parlance to give some context to a point he was making about the importance of families in our society. The only problem was that rather than play to the delusions of the pro-Pack crowd, he told the truth. Brownback said:

"This is fundamental blocking and tackling. This is your line in football." He followed that up with, "If you don't have a line, how many passes can Peyton Manning complete? Greatest quarterback, maybe, in NFL history."

Despite being a fairly true statement, that did not make the ribosomes very happy. Brownback, to his credit, realized this was not popular almost immediately and apologized to the crowd for using a non-Packer analogy. But here's my favorite part. When Brownback changed his analogy to include Favre, he wasn't really prepared for the response of the clearly batshit crazy Packer fans:

"Let's take Favre then," Brownback said. "The Packers are great. I'm sorry. How many passes does he complete without a line?"

"All of them!" more than one person yelled from the back of the audience.

"I'm not sure how I recover from this," Brownback told the crowd. "My point is we've got to rebuild the family. I'll get off this."

Two things about this: 1.) I'd LOVE to see how John Kerry would have responded if he had made this gaffe. His response would probably have been "Ok, bad example, let's take Eli McBrady then, he too is a great pitcher for the Wisconsin American Field Sport of Football Squadron." And 2.) I think Packers fans truly believe that Favre's offensive line is the only thing preventing him from completing every pass. And not because they need to improve, but because they get in his way. They need to be off the field. If Brett Favre just lined up with 10 wide receivers, he'd have 200 touchdowns a game. And apparently this delusion is contagious because now Brett Favre believes it...

Though he's apparently calmed down and stepped back from his trade demand, Brett Favre is clearly delusional about the Packers chances this year. Favre pretty much convinced himself that Randy Moss would be the difference between the Packers making and missing the playoffs. Favre couldn't be more wrong. The Packers are worse right now as an organization than the Lions (look at their rosters and don't give me their record last year, that was an aberration and a result of being in one of the worst divisions in NFL history). They have less young talent on either side of the ball than almost any team other than the Giants, absolutely ZERO playmakers on offense (unless you include Greg Jennings, but he's only as good as the guy throwing him the ball) and one of the worst defenses in the history of sport. They didn't pick up one impact player in the free agent market and while the NFC is weak and almost any team can step up and grab a 5th or 6th slot with good draft picks and savvy free agent moves, Green Bay was one of the few teams going into this offseason that had absolutely no chance of making the playoffs no matter what they did. They've got too many holes. This organization has been really poorly run for the last 3 years and some of that is Favre's fault. He's been holding them hostage with his fake retirement stuff so they haven't been able to rebuild like they should and have held onto aging former stars too long in the hopes of giving Favre his "one last run" at the title. So while I understand the nature of Favre's discontent (that he doesn't want to go out like this), he is nuts if he thinks Randy Moss could have been the difference between a playoff appearance and another season in the cellar. The Packers aren't one player away from anything. Actually, let me qualify that statement: The Packers are one player away from something. They are the retirement of Brett Favre away from becoming a viable organization and relevant again.

Bruce Campbell Is A Genius

This couldn't have less to do with sports, but the above video is hilarious on so many levels. In a stroke of genius, Old Spice recently grabbed Bruce Campbell to be the face of their new terrific ad campaign. Campbell is best known for his role in one of my personal favorite movies of all-time, Army of Darkness (the trailer of which is seen below). If you've seen the film, you already know of Campbell's penchant for comedic genius. If not, you need to see it. Though if you haven't seen the movie, the Old Spice ads do a decent job of capturing Campbell's subtle brand of comedy and gives a glimpse of the essence of what it is that makes Campbell frickin terrific. I look forward to more Campbell, and not in the way you might think.

Is Billy Beane David Copperfield?

Billy Beane's Jack Cust move makes the Copperfield Statue of Liberty stunt look like Grandpa pulling quarters from behind your ear.
I know Billy Beane is a genius and all, but this Jack Cust situation is out of control. Jack Cust hit another home run today, and this one won the game. Since Cust joined the A's he's played in 7 games. In those 7 games he's hit 6 home runs. That's Archi Cianfrocco territory. So how did Billy Beane know that trading for Cust for a player to be named later was going to be such a good idea? Well surely his prior history would indicate such potential.... except for the fact that it does not. In Cust's prior 70 games in the majors, he hit 5 home runs. So I guess his power numbers don't really tell the story. He must be a hot young prospect then that just hasn't had enough time in the majors, right? Well, he's 28 and has spent about a decade in the minors, so that's idea's out. But Beane loves OBP and other stats that Joe Morgan feels are irrelevant. Well, Cust's career OBP is .347 and was lower coming into the year and he strikes out almost 3 times as many times as he walks, so that's not that sweet. Everyone else thought that Cust was a lost cause. So how did Beane know just what Cust was capable of? How did he know he could resurrect him? What info did he have? I figured it out. I pulled back Coppefield's cape. He looked here and found this:

* Currently a member of the San Diego Padres
* Played MLB with Arizona Diamondbacks and Baltimore Orioles
* New Jersey Gatorade Player of The Year in 1997 and a 1st Team All American
* Chosen by the Star Ledger as a member of The All Century Baseball team starting nine
* Drafted in 1st Round by the Arizona Diamondbacks
* Jack is well know for his tremendous knowledge of hitting & an exceptional understanding of the strike zone, possessing one of the most prodigious swings in all of Pro ball

And who put together this objective and in depth scouting report? Well, that would be sometime New Jersey professional hitting instructor and full-time crazy father of Jack Cust, Jr., Jack Cust, Sr (and absolutely unbelievable site, by the way). Yup, it would seem that Billy Beane is using player dads for scouting, and it's working. If Beane was using this technique 15 years ago, Todd Marinovich would be hitting cleanup for the A's.