A Moment of Extreme Self-Awareness

It's a couple of days until pitchers and catchers report!  So not only am I using MATLAB to do calculations on a 2,386x9 matrix (it takes over a minute to create this matrix) so I can take guesses at each teams' winning percentages, but I am also doing a quick look over each depth chart to take some guesses based off gut instinct.  This isn't about my thoughts on the whole (Washington and Atlanta may be among the most complete teams I have ever seen, but I am totally biased) but rather something I noticed when looking at one specific team.  Lets see if you notice it as immediately as I do.

Do you see it?  If you don't, allow me to zoom in.

Yes, the New York Yankees bullpen is currently no more than just Mariano Rivera all on his own.  This might be one of the best managerial decisions I have ever seen!  They have effectively been just Mariano Rivera for over a decade now, not only that, but I could go even further and say their bullpen has been Mariano Rivera's cutter for the last decade.  Why not just accept this fact and cut everybody from the team and let him stand alone, the man is easily the best relief pitcher in history, and even though he spent all of last year on the DL, even though I am a Red Sox fan, even though he is 43 years old, I can say that it is more than likely the best closer in baseball.  This frightens me to no end, and I really wish they would try to go into the season with this setup for two reasons.  First, I am imagining the random cuts to the bullpen that are often showed in TV broadcasts and you just see Rivera sitting all alone with his bullpen catcher shooting the shit, not another soul to be seen.  Second, it makes it a little bit easier to watch the following video and pretend its Joe Girardi singing instead of Michael Bolton.

(Note: I wanted to go with this video originally)

This has done nothing but get me even more excited for baseball season starting back up, I'll be back with my results on my predictions when they are finished and I might even talk about the WBC if I can manage to find a way to watch it.  Goodbye everybody, and wonder to yourself, how are you supposed to live without Mariano Rivera?

Pique Confused?

Extremely reliable source Goal.com has reported that Barcelona center back, Gerard Pique, has claimed that current Real Madrid trainer, Jose "The Special One" Mourinho, got away with "murder" last year. Pique pointed out that  Mourinho poked Tito Villanova in the eye. However, ongoing investigations suggest that the infamous eye poke had nothing to do with Tito's battle against cancer. The leading culprit for Tito's cancer is in fact New York Yankees third baseman, Alex Rodriguez. Pique is not to blame for this misunderstanding, though. Clearly he was confused by the story recently breaking from the National Football League regarding Ray Lewis' retirement. The National Football League has been a major distraction to all other sports in Europe following the wild success of the National Football League's annual single game in London each season. Not only do foreign fans not understand what's going on during the game, but they have become increasingly interested in the drama, such as Ray Lewis' retirement, a story that has clearly had a lot of meaning to Gerard Pique, even if he thought they were reporting on Jose "The Special One Mourinho."

They accused me of what?

One of the stories that makes up Ray Lewis' illustrious career has to do with a double murder and a bloody suit, belonging to Mr. Lewis, that has gone missing probably never to be seen again. Neither Jose Mourinho or Ray Lewis got away with murder last year, Mr. Pique, but Ray Lewis probably got away with murder years ago. Pique, most likely distracted by his girlfriend Shakira's hips because they don't lie, must have caught only part of the story and, just like every other Barcelona player or fan, thought that the negative news was about Satan's imp over in Madrid, Jose Mourinho.

Have you seen my girlfriend's hips?

While Mourinho has not been interviewed about Pique's allegations yet and the mix up with the Ray Lewis story, it is beyond reasonable doubt that Jose would respond with "who is Ray Lewis?" and then ask Pique where his 2011/2012 La Liga trophy was. Real Madrid fans have rallied by claiming that Cristiano Ronaldo, CR7, is the best player in the world, and Barcelona fans have countered with "91."

So goes the never ending feud between Barcelona and Real Madrid...

Inept Football!!

Although I am usually a baseball writer for this blog, I decided after this weekend of playoff football I need to write about it. I have never experienced a series of playoff games that have ever been as uninteresting as the ones I just saw.  I usually expect when watching playoffs of any sport that there is going to be some sense of talent or anticipation or even excitement, but rather I spent hours of my weekend waiting for the games to end.  Let's look at how each game managed to bore me.

Game 1: Houston 19 Cincinnati 13
I never thought this game ever had any hope of being entertaining, when I saw it was going to happen I thought "haven't we seen this before?" Yes, we had seen this before and it was almost entertaining because I was drinking and Arian Foster was running fools over left and right.  This time I wasn't drinking and actually watched the first part of the game at a local pizza joint, which probably makes for the best part of the game.  While Toninho and I were waiting for our delicious Hawaiian pizza to come to us, some random guy and other people with him come in and occupy the booth next to us, I chose the booth in the far corner for a reason.  Anyways, the guy was all sorts of pumped to see the outcome of this game and I believe was interested in seeing the Texans lose, I know this because he talked to everybody in his local vicinity about this and even enlightened Toninho and I with this amazing insight, "if the Texans lose, they're going home!"  Thank whichever deity you choose that we had him to explain to us how the NFL playoffs worked, despite the fact that anybody who gave a damn about what he said would know that already.  Anyways, we ate our pizza and watched the game at my house.  Arian Foster kicked ass again, there were a ton of field goals and Cincinnati had negative passing yards in the first half.  Yup, that's some inept football courtesy of Andy Dalton.  But at least there was another game coming up!

No look pass?

Game 2: Green Bay 24 Minnesota 10
Looking back I can't believe the score was as close as it was, this game never appeared to be even vaguely close.  Especially since Minnesota discovered their mediocre quarterback, Christian Ponder was too hurt to be able to play, and their coach decided to start backup Joe Webb because they wanted to "rest him up for next week" (the quote is probably not exact but he definitely said something along those lines.)  Here's some background knowledge on Joe Webb, he had not thrown a pass in about 2 years, the only positive thing they could say about him is that he runs a 4.4 second 40 yard dash and, as far as I'm concerned, his greatest achievement is having jumped over 7 bags during his combine.  The eleven points Green Bay were giving were obviously too few as once again we were in range of having a team go into halftime with negative passing yards (something we were told only happened one other time in NFL playoff history), there is no way they had much more than 4 though.  It was at this time we went to a bar and I paid much less attention to the game.  I would occasionally look up at the TV and see Webb alternate between throwing the ball 12 yards too far or 12 yards too short.  I'm sure the Packers played fine, but I was left wondering how Joe Webb could possibly be a professional quarterback who was so bad at his job, I'm not sure whether or not I want to see him get another chance.

Speaking of another chance...

Game 3: Baltimore 24 Indianapolis 9
To make some excuses for the first set of games, nobody was expecting them to be entertaining.  I figured I would have a fun night on the town, wake up and enjoy the games that were supposed to be good.  This first game was rife with subplot, probably the best defensive player I have seen in my life was potentially playing the last game of his career at home in the playoffs (not as emotional as Chipper's last game in October, by the way) against the first overall pick rookie quarterback and their cancer survivor head coach.  The drama was palpable and there was no way the game couldn't be entertaining!  Sure as hell this turned out to be one of those low scoring games, and in football a low scoring game usually means it is really sloppy and this game followed the trend.  Joe Flacco was doing Joe Flacco things, I can't remember if Ray Rice ever came on the field and, worse yet, Andrew Luck must have been so nervous he was drenching the ball with his sweat, I can't think of another reason his receivers would have dropped 9 passes with those flypaper gloves.  Anyways, the result of this game was a whole lot more field goals, another week of hearing about how this may be Ray Lewis's last game and another few hours of commercials and boring football, but at least I got to see the following commercial a few times!

 Game 4: Seattle 24 Washington 14
I was excited for this game, even through the boring games before it, I kept watching knowing that I''ll get to see RG3 and Russell Wilson battle it out in the last game of the weekend.  There was no way this game could let me down, especially since Griffin and his Redskins came out of the gates with two dominant drives for touchdowns, including the second one which left me raving about how much of a warrior Griffin was after twisting his knee, limping to the huddle and throwing a touchdown on the next play.  Unfortunately it was not a sign of  awesomeness but rather a sign that things were going to start hobbling.  Shortly after that, Russell Wilson and his Seahawks started going on a tear and going into the 2nd half it was a tight game.  So there was potential that it was going down to the wire.  Much to the chagrin of everybody who wanted to watch an entertaining game, Griffin's knee was screwed up for the day and as was Washington's offense.  Washington couldn't get anything going and neither could Seattle, partially due to the kicker turning his ankle earlier (and the award for most hilarious injury to affect a game's trajectory goes there.)  Then we reached the point where Russell Wilson remembered that he was good and suddenly the game was over.  On the whole, it wasn't that bad of a game, but it also wasn't too good of a game.  After such a bad set of games it was way too little too late.

DC sports renaissance!  2013

So that was my weekend, and everybody else's who likes to watch the playoffs.  Let's hope that next weeks games are better, or at least the ones that are supposed to be entertaining actually live up to their billing.  I'm looking at you San Francisco-Green Bay and Atlanta-Seattle.

Messi Wins 2012 Ballon d'Or

Earlier today Barcelona's Lionel Messi, the little genius, was awarded the 2012 Fifa Ballon d'Or. Messi has now won this award four times in a row, a streak beginning with the 2009 Ballon d'Or. Soon Fifa will change the name of this award to the "Lionel Messi" award, a fitting name since the Argentine is the only player allowed to win the award. Coming into today the field of eligible recipients had been narrowed down to Cristiano Ronaldo, Andres Iniesta, and the paragon of excellence that is Lionel Messi.

The Fifa Ballon d'Or is a combination of the Fifa World Player of the year award and the Ballon d'Or award, commonly known as the European Footballer of the World award. The Ballon d'Or was presented to the European player who was deemed to have performed the best over the past calendar year. The Fifa World Player of the year was awarded to the best player in the world. With the merging of the two awards, the new criteria for winning the award changes each year to fit the accomplishments of Barcelona's Hobbit-like forward, Lionel Messi.

Can you believe I won again?

In 2010, Dutch, attacking midfielder, Wesley Sneijder was an integral part of Inter Milan's success as well as Holland's. Sneijder led Inter Milan to a treble winning season, winning the Copa Italia, the Italian Serie A, and the Champions League. Sneijder's Inter even eliminated the little genius' squad from the Champion's League in the semi-final stage. Not even the greatest team in the history of everything could keep Inter away from the treble. Later in 2010 Sneijder reached the World Cup final with Holland, again playing an integral role. Holland did lose to Spain in extra time in that final, but Messi's Argentina was bounced from the competition when Germany romped them 4-0 in the knockout stages. However, Messi still won the Ballon d'Or in 2010.

Then in the 2010-2011 season Messi's Barcelona finished first in La Liga and won the Champions League. Meanwhile Cristiano Ronaldo's Real Madrid finished second in La Liga, but the hated Portuguese led the league in scoring. Naturally Messi won the award because of the success his team enjoyed and his large goal tally. However, in the 2011-2012 campaign Real Madrid dominated La Liga, earning over 100 points and scoring a large quantity of goals. The goal distribution at Real Madrid is not nearly as lopsided as Barcelona. Cristiano Ronaldo scored 46 league goals while getting good inputs from teammates such as Karim Benzema. Messi, scoring 50 league goals that year and 73 overall (13 more than Cristiano Ronaldo's 60 total goals) won the Ballon d'Or. When Messi scores a ton of goals and wins the Copa del Rey, that's the criteria for winning the Ballon d'Or. When Cristiano Ronaldo scores a ton of goals and wins the Copa del Rey in 2010-2011 campaign, it's not good enough.

This award belongs to me

There is no surprise that the little genius that is Lionel Messi won the 2012 Ballon d' Or. Messi scored a ton of goals and didn't win La Liga or the Champions League. The criteria for winning the 2012 Ballon d'Or was breaking Muller's goals in one calendar year record, a record that no one ever spoke about until the very later stages of 2012. Fifa has already declared that the criteria for next year's award is to "be Lionel Messi." If Cristiano Ronaldo scores 527 goals in 2013, he will not win the award because people do not like him. Fifa continuously puts Cristiano Ronaldo in the final three for consideration in hopes of making him cry after seeing Messi receive the award year after year. Robin van Persie, the man who carried Arsenal last season and led the English Premier League in scoring was not a final three contestant because he is not Lionel Messi and he does not play for Barcelona or Real Madrid.

The 2014 Ballon d'Or final three have already been decided upon: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and someone who has no chance in hell to win the award. Well, make that Lionel Messi and two people that have no chance in hell to win the award, one which will be Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi has won this new Ballon d'Or four out of the five years it has been in existence, but Fifa officials still cannot figure out how he did not win in 2008. What a travesty that was.

Let's all congratulate Lionel Messi for winning the 2012 Ballon d'Or, and while we're at it, congratulations on winning the 2013 Ballon d'Or, too. He really is a little genius.

Hope for Running Quarterbacks in the National Football League

Over the last decade or so, the quarterback position in the National Football League has evolved into a position not only for throwing the football, but also for running it. Arguably the most influential pioneer of running quarterbacks is Michael Vick, who made running his primary directive while quarterback at Virginia Tech. No quarterback has or did run the football quite like Vick, who would take off on captivating runs down the field using his blazing speed and agility to evade tackles.

However the running quarterback has not found much success in the National Football League outside of establishing quarterback rushing records and winning a few games. Not even the great Michael Vick could use his admirable skill set to outrun and juke out professional thugs, such as Ray Lewis, as a means of winning games. The quarterbacks winning the National Football League's greatest prize, the Super Bowl, continue to be quarterbacks who can throw the ball. Trent Dilfer is an exception, but he sure was not a running quarterback. For the most part quarterbacks such as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees win Super Bowls. Or you get ridiculously lucky by heaving the ball in the air like Eli Manning. Nonetheless, none of the aforementioned quarterbacks are known as running quarterbacks.

The defenses in the National Football League consist of the best of the best. These guys will kill you. Despite the lack of success in the National Football League for running quarterbacks, college football remains rife with these clowns. Coaches with running quarterbacks and National Football League teams scouting and contemplating drafting running quarterbacks must begin thinking of ways to make the running quarterback more successful where it counts: in the National Football League. Absorbing National Football League hits over the course of a National Football League season is the job of players who are not the quarterback. However, there may be one method that will revolutionize the National Football League and see running quarterbacks become legitimate threats.

Observational studies of pickup football games (whether tackle, two-hand touch, flag, or any other variation of the game played in the National Football League) have shown that quarterbacks yelling "Michael Vick, Michael Vick!" as they pull the football down to run average a great deal more yards per carry and are far less likely to get injured or suffer a concussion than counterparts who yell something else or remain silent. The theory behind this method is that yelling "Michael Vick, Michael Vick!" as the quarterback goes into a run channels the inner Virginia Tech Michael Vick, thus allowing the quarterback to pull off amazing runs, avoid injury, and even win games.

The "Michael Vick technique" is still in experimental stages, but don't be surprised if this new technique starts showing up in National Football League preseason games. Current National Football League quarterbacks considering implementing the "Michael Vick" technique into their game include Tim Tebow, Colin Kaepernick, Vince Young, and Michael Vick himself.

Michael Vick, Michael Vick!

Of course this technique is only suitable to quarterbacks who run often. Asking a quarterback of Tom Brady's stature to implement this technique would be down right silly, he can already win games and no one should assume that he even knows who Michael Vick is.

Did not call "Michael Vick, Michael Vick!"

Usually rushing is left to the running back, but if that's not working the Michael Vick technique is sure to catch fire sooner or later. Keep an eye out for the Michael Vick technique, and when it comes around watch those running National Football League quarterback's yards per carry go up and injuries go down.

intERrUPTION: Ending the Streak

This past weekend Inter Milan defeated Juventus 3-1 in the Serie A ending Juventus' 49 match unbeaten streak. The match began in typical fashion with the referee allowing Juventus to score a goal in the first minute that was sparked by a pass to a Juventus player in an offside position. The referee, at this early stage of the game, thought he was getting a Maserati from the Agnelli family, a belief he held throughout the duration of the first half. If asked about the call, the referee would wisely tell the media that he was not offered a Maserati and that Juventus were unfairly demoted to the Serie B a few years ago on false information. He would cite the penalty he awarded Inter at the beginning of the second half as proof that he was not favoring Juventus, despite missing a blatant offsides call that directly led to a goal.

Offsides much?

Despite some suspect refereeing and roughhousing from Juventus defender, Inter, headed by a resurgent Diego Milito were able to turn the halftime deficit into a two goal by the late stages of the game. Not even Andrea Pirlo's beard could save Juventus from suffering defeat on this fateful day in November.

The Italian Serie A has come a long way in the past ten years or so. Once one of the very top leagues in Europe in the late 90s and early 2000s, the Serie A is now rated lower than the German Bundesliga. As a result the Serie A has seen reduced automatic spots in the Champions League and is now ranked closer to the French League. Now the Serie A is best known for it's match fixing scandals that present themselves at least once each season, usually involving a handful of teams.

Despite the praise that Juventus has been given over the past season continuing into the current campaign, the only teams from Italy that have found any success in Europe recently are both from Milan, Inter Milan and AC Milan. AC Milan won the Champions League a few years ago and Inter most recently lifted the coveted trophy in 2010, a campaign that included the Italian Cup and the Serie A title, too. Either referees throughout Europe aren't interested in Maseratis or other clubs are offering something better. What is Barcelona's secret? Whatever it is, Fernando Torres didn't care to stick around to figure it out.

Juventus' CEO, Giuseppe Marotta, claimed that Juventus' lack of a "clinical striker" was a major part of the undoing of his club. Apparently this was not a problem during the 49 game unbeaten streak. Alessandro Del Piero's 3 goals in 23 league appearances last season is sorely missed by the Italian giants. Inter could not have possibly won this game because they were the better team, they don't even give the referees presents. If there is one thing that is certain about this match, it is that the referee did not drive home in a brand new Maserati.

The floor is now open for bets on which teams will be involved in a match fixing scandal at the end of the 2012-2013 Italian Serie A season. Good luck and choose wisely.

What do you mean the beard wasn't enough?

Losing Is Good For You!

Don't get confused by the title, this isn't one of those things your parents, teachers and other respectable members of society are trying to tell you.  The whole "losing builds character" thing is fine, but since we write about real sports and real competitions where winning is everything, to hell with character!  Especially since we are talking about baseball, not saying that all baseball players are bad people, but look at the top two all time hits leaders!  One is banned from baseball for the rest of his life and the next is considered to be a disgrace to baseball despite being the leading vote-getter for the introductory class for the Hall of Fame, and is still the 4th leading vote-getter of all time.  I also hold the stiff belief that Barry Bonds was the best player I've seen in my life, possibly only being threatened by Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and the potential of a healthy Ken Griffey Jr.  So you know what, character is great and I have all the respect in the world for the Chipper Joneses and Derek Jeters of the world, but in some cases you don't need to be the best person to be successful in baseball.  Returning to my point, even though you don't need character and losing builds character, losing can be important in the right circumstances.  Namely, the Championship Series.

Because I respect my readers..

As you should know if you are reading this, the San Francisco Giants are once again the World Series champions, and since the last time I wrote about this topic it went on to be one of my most viewed blog posts ever, I'll see if lightning can strike twice.  They once again won on a great pitching staff, which this time DID include Barry Zito and his curve.  But I don't want to talk about the Giants winning, I'm slightly more interested in talking about the Tigers losing.  They quite possibly have 3 of the top 10 players in the league right now yet looked completely helpless for the entire series, which only lasted 4 games.  The hell of it was that the Tigers also were playing their best baseball of the year down the stretch.  Miguel Cabrera had a fantastic September that catapulted him from "this guy is having a quite good season" to "this guy is winning the Triple Crown" and his Triple Crown is still something I didn't expect to see for a long time.  Their pitching staff was streaking with Max Scherzer and Doug Fister each having awesome Septembers, as well as Verlander being himself.  They had just swept the Yankees in an ALCS that looked too easy.  Yet Despite all this they still looked useless at the bat against San Francisco.  This could, of course, be due to the fantastic pitching staff they have, but that wouldn't be as fun to talk about as why they failed.

"Woah! San Fran can cheer for me!"

Even before the series started I couldn't have helped but remember the 2007 Colorado Rockies, streaking down the stretch of the season to make the playoffs, then not losing a single game before falling to the Red Sox in the World Series.  A World Series in which they were outscored 29-10, although most of that deficit was caused by a 13-1 loss in game 1 to set the tone of the series.  Needless to say the Rockies did not win a single game that series.  Being both a Red Sox fan and a fan of baseball in general, this was an interesting time for me, because while the Rockies swept their NLCS against Arizona, the Red Sox took their sweet time dispatching Cleveland in all 7 games.  So while the Red Sox were gaining tons of momentum coming back to win a series they once trailed 3-1, the Rockies were just sitting there at home waiting to find out where they had to go for game 1, a period of 9 days where they had not taken part in any real competition.  Needless to say if they had any momentum that was helping them out through the playoffs, it was long gone.

Also a little help from umpires, perhaps?

 Are you starting to see the connections yet?  I was vaguely thinking about this at the start of the series, but as it went on it seemed to be more and more like deja vu, so I actually took the time to look at the past results of teams that had swept their 7 game Championship series.  Since the 7 game series was introduced in 1985 here is the exhaustive list of teams that have won it in 4 games. The 1988 Oakland Athletics, 1990 Oakland Athletics, 1995 Atlanta Braves, 2006 Detroit Tigers, 2007 Colorado Rockies and the 2012 Detroit Tigers.  Out of these 6 teams in the playoffs, they have combined for 6 wins in the World Series, (4 of those coming from the 1995 World Champion Atlanta Braves) and a total record of 6-22.  Needless to say, sweeping the Championship Series has not been a particularly good thing for teams that desire to win the World Series, no matter how counter-intuitive and backwards that may seem.  This is by no means saying that if you sweep the Championship Series, you are going to get destroyed in the World Series, but it is starting to look like a trend, so please, try to lose at least one game will ya?

By being less hasty of doing this, you can do this more often!

I do need to make sure that I give proper credit to the San Francisco Giants once again, they played a great series, and got some pretty great production out of all their players.  Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants, but don't get too soft the Dodgers are gonna be coming for you next year.  Speaking of next year, MLB Fan Cave look no further, I'm comin' for ya!