Great article on the Hawks on Sports Guy's page...

but naturally, it's not by the page's namesake, who can't say anything about the local basketball collective without bitching about the fact that Hawks fans don't sell the place out to see a team that hasn't been to the playoffs since the time that Britney Spears was a cute popster dancing around in a Catholic school girl's outfit and longingly looking into the camera, wondering what it would be like to take a boy's pants off. Instead, his intern, Kevin Cott, comes through with this strong piece, written before the Draft, about his evolution as a Hawks fan.

Mine was fairly similar. I had a love affair with the 'Nique teams of the late 80s because they were the only good team in Atlanta and they were so much fun to watch. I disagree, though, on the 'Nique trade. In retrospect, it didn't work out because the team lost to the Pacers in six and didn't play up to their #1 seed. However, 'Nique was starting to show signs of decline, and it's likely that the team wasn't going to the Finals with him, either. He was shooting 43.2% from the field in '94, the lowest FG% of his career. He had a negative assist/turnover ratio for the first time since the '85-'86 season. Manning was a more efficient player and was motivated by being in the last year of his deal. What ultimately did that '94 team in was their inability to score and that was true with 'Nique or Manning playing at the three. And giving up the first round pick didn't matter because it ended up being one of the last picks in the first round and the Clippers used it to take the immortal Greg Minor.

I agree with the rest of the piece. Pete Babcock's drafts were beyond inept (and apparently, the other NBA GM apple from the Babcock tree is also infested with "make you draft bad players" worms. Enjoy, Toronto, and f*** you for the '92 World Series.) Babcock did a decent job at assembling the Mutombo-Blaylock-Smith team, but his terrible drafting prevented that team from integrating fresh blood, so when they finally got old, the rebuilding was rough and made worse by the decision to go for broke with Shareef, Ratliff, and Glenn Robinson, rather than building the right way. Billy Knight has done a good job so far. I hold Josh Childress in slightly higher regard than Cott does, although I'm assuming that he'll learn to shoot at some point so he can be a good shooting guard. His drafting has been fairly good so far and he's resisted the urge to take shortcuts by taking overpriced vets. He's after the right guys right now - Tyson Chandler, Sam Dalembert, and Eddy Curry, hopefully in that order - and his solid drafting has made the team a more attractive option.

I reserve the right to take this all back and call Billy the worst Knight since Michael if he blows the Al Harrington chip on someone like Stephon Marbury. He tried to blow the Hawks' cap space on Erick Dampier last summer, so it isn't like Billy is incapable of committing resources on flawed players.

Today's the day

There are two days that serve as the unofficial kickoff to college football season in my world. One is the day that the wife goes to Borders and buys Phil Steele for me. The other is the day I go to Best Buy and pick up this gem. I was driving up to Charlotte yesterday for a deposition and was remembering in my head every exit that has a Best Buy for the trip back today. Yes, I'm pathetic.

I'm actually not overly excited about any of the new features of the game this year. The Heisman mode doesn't wow me because I'm not much on individual role playing. It seems like a nod to the modern generation, weaned on Grand Theft Auto. I am, however, looking forward to new game play after pretty much mastering NCAA '05. Having receivers who don't "catch" the ball like Jackie Smith in Super Bowl XIII will be a nice addition. Plus, the process of having to master a new playbook and find those 4-5 plays that always work is always entertaining.


On second thought, maybe I gave Heisman mode a raw deal, since they apparently used my freshman dorm room for a screen shot. All it's missing is the Sega Genesis with Bill Walsh College Football, a Hebrew textbook, my sweet-ass Brazil '94 cap, a stack of Dylan CDs to scare away all the women, my Brother word processor, the poster of Tyrone Wheatley breaking away in the 1/1/93 Rose Bowl, and the dorky pre-meds outside the room breaking down the pros and cons of lunch in excrutiating detail. Otherwise, it's a dead ringer for 5120 Mary Markley

"You spent $300...and it was really just a massage?"

I spent this past weekend in Vegas for a bachelor party, which meant spending a fair amount of money (I find that Vegas completely destroys one's sense of time and money, even a cheap-ass like myself, such that by the end of the weekend, a $25 cover to go into a bar makes perfect sense), getting little sleep (thank goodness I'm cheap and don't gamble much or else I would have gotten absolutely no sleep), and watching a bunch of single compatriots (and a few not-single friends) make new friends. The supply of women in that town is off the charts, which is a testament to the fact that the town has turned itself from a macho place to gamble into a party place like South Beach that attracts bachelorette parties by the bushel. Good thing, too, because with the rise of Biloxi-type places and Indian casinos, Vegas doesn't have the gambling monopoly that it used to.

Anyway, since this blog is ostensibly about sports, I suppose I should mention my trip to the Sports Book at Bally's, which was populated with the one form of life even lower than the sad oldies who sit sullen at the slot machines for hours at a time, playing a "game" that entails absolutely no skill or independent thought: horse racing addicts. Vegas is the only place you see these guys, who look like they haven't seen the sun or had human interaction since 1972. They shout at horses on TV screens, as if that will make them run faster. I know I do the same thing with Michigan safeties, but they're human beings with free will, so in the fictional world in which they can hear me, they can respond to my pleas to "tackle somebody for once." What's a horse going to do if it hears you yell "Faster, you tub of glue!"?

I'm digressing in a major way. What I was trying to say was that I found the odds on the college football national title to be unhinged from reality, mainly in the sense that they clearly reflect the economics of the situation. Ohio State (8:1) and Michigan (9:1) were the third and fourth favorites (USC and Texas are #1 and #2), which is amusing to me since Big Ten teams rarely win (or even contend for) the national title, a fact that wouldn't be lost on the knowledgeable gambler, but the hordes of Michigan and OSU fans streaming into Vegas from Kalamazoo and Upper Sandusky can't be described as such. Me? I'm a knowledgeable gambler in my imagination. In reality, I'm just knowledgeable, which is why I staked a whopping $10 on LSU at 20:1. Their odds are more than twice as long as the cream of the Big Ten, despite the fact that they don't play a tough road game and were better than both last year. Knowing my luck, they'll run the table and then tumble in the SEC Title Game or the Rose Bowl. The Tigers were the one objective bet that I made. I also plunked down $10 on the Braves to win the NL and Holland to win the World Cup, or, as I described it to my brother, I took $20 and lit it on fire, betting on two two teams notorious for failing once in sight of a championship.

Interestingly, Georgia was 40:1, which seemed awfully long odds, but then I remembered that the odds are nothing more than a reflection of the market's perception and the market is hung up on the fact that Georgia is replacing their quarterback and star defensive players (ignoring the fact that they return almost everything on the lines,) as well as the fact that Tennessee, Florida, and South Carolina have received all of the hype in the division this off-season. Georgia's odds were only marginally better than those of Wisconsin, a plodding Big Ten squad that lost almost every major contributor from the defense that was the sole quality unit on the team in 2004. Then again, that's because there are a lot more mindless homers from Kenosha wandering around Bally's than there are mindless homers from Macon like me.

One other note from the Sports Book: I watched the first five innings of the Braves game on Saturday night and came away with the impression that Kyle Davies is doing a very poor job of locating his pitches. He was right down the middle for the whole first inning, then he was wild thereafter. Leo needs to settle him down a little and remind him that 89 and on the corners with movement is better than a straight 92 over the middle.

And have I mentioned, by the way, that the Braves are on F***ING FIRE!?!

The Braves' sweep of the Cubs this week puts them at 16-5 in their last 21 games and gives them their second five-game winning streak in the last two weeks. Sticking up the Cubs' doodiemaker (and specifically those of Wood and Prior) was especially nice as revenge for 2003, which remains one of the most painful series losses for the Braves in recent years because that Braves team was better than that Cubs team.

Last night's capper after allowing one run in the first three games was beautiful. First, Andruw "He'll never hit in the clutch say the middle-aged dumpy sportscasters of the city" Jones hit an absolute rocket to put the Braves up 5-4 and then uber-prospect Jeff Francoeur unloaded on a Glendon Rusch offering to put the game away. If that hit was any indication of Francoeur's future, he has some serious power because he didn't hit the ball that well and yet it left the yard in centerfield. You would have to be Attila the Hun (or a miserable Cubs fan) not to be emotional about a young guy from the area hitting a homer in his first game in the bigs and then TBS cutting to his parents going crazy. (I was a little annoyed that they didn't include his girlfriend in the shot. TBS' recent focus on titillation apparently doesn't extend to their baseball coverage. Too bad.)

Francoeur's call-up brings up an interesting problem for the Braves. Assuming there are no significant changes in baseball's labor structure in the next six years, they are going to have an enormous crop of good players hitting free agency after the 2011 season because they have brought up so many major prospects in one year. Think about how much they'll have to pay Francoeur, Andy Marte, Kelly Johnson, Brian McCann, Kyle Davies, and Ryan Langerhans when they all become free agents at once. On second thought, it's likely that they'll have traded about half of them by that time, so the effect won't be huge, but even if the Braves only keep the top three on that list, that's still a significant future commitment that will have to be factored into their financial decisions in the latter years of this decade.

And now, for something completely new, I'm going to bitch about overexposure of the Yanks and Sox

I was reminded this morning why I've gradually divorced SportsCenter from my life, along with Baked Cool Ranch Doritos and sanity. The lead story was about the Yankees' reaction to the London subway bombings. It was very reassuring to find out what Derek Jeter had to say about them, since I was wondering incessantly yesterday about what the implications of the attack are for the War on al Qaeda (I've always found the phrase "War on Terror" to be useless; how does one fight an ephemeral concept?) and English domestic politics and then I said to myself "it would sure help if I knew what Derek Jeter thought."

SportsCenter's flimsy pretense for involving the Yankees was that al Qaeda attacked subways in London and there is a subway that runs by Yankee Stadium. That's a strong connection. Terrorists attacked a subway a continent away, so Yankee Stadium must be the next target. Did I miss the SportsCenter after the Bali nightclub bombing in which Jeremy Schaap sat down with Derek Jeter and asked him about how he felt about that bombing on the other side of the globe so Jeter could explain how it gives him pause before going into whatever overpriced club he frequents in Manhattan?

SportsCenter then veered strangely into actual baseball highlights, showing the Yankees-Indians and Mets-Nationals packages, then came back from break to slobber all over the Red Sox, which is surely something new for them. One feature on Johnny Damon's comments on Curt Schilling pitching from the bullpen, followed by another in-depth report on Curt's one inning with the Pawtucket Red Sox. Hell, they even worked in highlights of the Sox' actual game in Baltimore. Who's making the programming decisions for them, Bill Simmons?

And speaking of Herr SportsGuy, I and the rest of the sports blogosphere owe him a debt of gratitude for essentially creating and perfecting this format, but he is insufferable when discussing baseball or football because his teams are on top of those hills and he reflects everything through their prism. Today's effort is no exception. When I saw that he was giving out Midseason Baseball Awards, I vainly hoped that he might say something nice about the Braves for the first time ever, with the team 12 games over .500 despite missing 60% of the starting rotation and fielding a line-up half of which was in the minors last year. Nope, these are strictly AL-only awards. What kind of sports fan only pays attention to half a league? Heck, even provincial SEC fans watch enough of other conferences to proclaim them vastly inferior to Southern Speed.

Then, he proclaims the following 13 players to be the biggest stars in baseball who ought to be in every All-Star Game: "Tejada, Guerrero, Manny, Jeter, A-Rod, Big Papi, Rivera, Clemens, Pedro, Ichiro, Schilling, Big Unit and Pujols". Notice something about this list? Over half of those players play for the Yanks or Red Sox. Two more - Clemens and Pedro - used to play for the Sox. Two more - Tejada and Vlad - are the best players on key AL rivals of the Yanks and Sox. Then, we throw the most popular player from Japan and the token NL star in and we have the list. Nothing provincial about that. I guess Barry Bonds isn't a star because he's never played the Red Sox or Yankees in the playoffs before.

This is what I get for investing too much emotional energy in an unabashed homer. Caveat emptor.

Cox on Lineups

I implore you to get ESPN Insider if you don't have it. That way, when I link to articles like this one, I won't feel like I'm talking in a vacuum. Anyway, a few thoughts on Cox's comments:

1. His justification for batting Furcal in the lead-off spot is that he's too important to let slide. Bobby echoes Charlie Manuel's statement that Furcal is the key to the Braves' lineup (and possibly to the entire team.) Bobby looks at the potential reward of Furcal hitting in the lead-off spot, which is significant, and weighs that against risk of him continuing to eat up at-bats while getting on base fewer than three times out of ten. I was fully in the "move Furcal down" camp, but I see Bobby's reasoning and it makes sense to me. He certainly comes across as unafraid to step on toes by moving players down in the lineup, which is interesting since I assumed that he didn't want to hurt Furcal's feelings by demoting him to 7th. Chipper certainly moans about not hitting third when he gets moved to clean-up and Bobby might be thinking out loud in advance of hitting him lower when he comes back, given the way that Johnson and Giles are hitting in the two and three spots. It's hard not to read this paragraph and not think that it is a shot across the bow of the S.S. Larry Wayne (not that Chipper probably has ESPN Insider or anything):

"You know what I think? You ought to be happy to have a uniform on, and if you're in the lineup, you should be thrilled and you shouldn't worry about where the manager hits you. That's my philosophy. Because we're not trying to lose the game. We're trying to put a lineup out that wins."

Chipper's always been a good guy in the clubhouse and loves Bobby, so I'd imagine that he'll fall in line if and when he returns.

2. Bobby apparently shares my affection about Kelly (who desperately needs a nickname, by the way,) since he mentions him four times in the article. He also shows that he has thought about batting him lead-off because of his ability to get on base, which shows that Bobby isn't entirely a slave to the "must have a fast guy hitting first" mistake.

Comparing the NHLPA and the Post-WWII German Volk

Here is the rumored final deal between the NHL's owners and players. Often, when a labor deal is struck in the sports context, there is some debate as to whether the players or owners "won." You don't need to be a Charlie Weis (or at least the Charlie Weis of Charlie Weis' imagination) to figure out that the owners won this dispute, getting everything they wanted, most significantly a hard cap at a fairly low number tied to league revenues.

The silver lining to losing an entire season is this: conflicts that are resolved with one side coming out as the clear victor, leaving the other side no way to save face or claim victory, often lead to a lasting peace. This is a pet historical theory of mine and it has led to disagreement on the part of others, so take it with a grain of salt, but I usually use Germany after WWI and WWII as the example. Because the Germans surrendered in WWI when they still had troops on the ground in France, Hitler had room in the 30s to argue that Germany hadn't really been defeated, but instead, had been stabbed in the back by Jews, Bolsheviks, and other enemies of the state. As a result, the peace after WWI was short-lived. Conversely, after WWII, when the war ended with the Allies razing Germany to the ground and exposing the facts of the Holocaust to the German citizenry, Germany was forced to reckon with its own culpability and reform itself. Now, there were certainly intervening factors, namely the Depression following WWI, as compared to the Cold War and Marshall Plan following WWII, but I'm fairly certain that the fact that there was a final, complete defeat for Germany in 1945 played a role in their transition to a stable, progressive country.

As applied to the NHL, the players cannot view the final result of their labor impasse as anything but a complete defeat. Gary Bettman is hanging his hammer and sickle from the top of their Reichstag while Bob Goodenow is contemplating the pros and cons of cyanide as opposed to a bullet in the brain. The players have probably realized at this stage that they aren't the NBA. Their league's revenues are significantly lower, mainly because of a non-existent national TV market, and their rosters are twice the size of NBA rosters. As a result, they can't use NBA (or NFL or MLB) players as a benchmark. The labor stoppage has almost certainly forced them to reckon with the fact that their league's popularity has been declining over several years and they are now going to feel that in their pocketbooks. They now have the incentive to work like hell to increase the league's revenues, which will mean less griping when the NHL makes changes to increase scoring and game flow. (For G-d sakes, could they start with the size of the goalies' pads? I was watching some old Gretzky highlights last night. It's no wonder that 215 points in a season was possible when goalies wore half the padding and therefore had to be able to skate to cut down angles, as opposed to sitting in the crease and letting shots hit them. He routinely skated around goalies and shot into empty nets, which you NEVER see anymore.)

A couple other thoughts:

1. I can't figure out why every team is going to have an equal shot at Sidney Crosby. Why wouldn't there be a weighted lottery? In any event, if there was ever a situation where a league had an incentive to play with a lottery, this is it. The immediate thought is that the NHL would prefer to send Crosby to the Rangers, knowing that the league was at its height in 1994 when the Rangers were good. On the other hand, the NHL has a huge dormant market in Chicago that could be reinvigorated with a new young star and a "spend or sell" order to Miserly Bill Wirtz. Finally, Crosby could be very useful in a place like Los Angeles or Boston. Basically, if the NHL is going to pick where he goes, they need to send him somewhere where he'll have maximum impact on their US television revenues.

On the other hand, maybe he won't be coming out at all. This could just be posturing by his agent, but if not, that #1 pick won't be worth nearly as much.

2. Overall, the new NHL landscape will favor a team like the Thrashers slightly because they will never be a high revenue team and the cap will therefore protect them. It will put a premium on quality drafting and player development, just as it does in the NFL, and Don Waddell has proven to be fairly good in that area, although it's hard to screw up when you have so many high first round picks. More importantly, a more open league with increased offense will favor an offensive team like the Thrashers. The question is whether they'll be able to keep Heatley and Kovalchuk under the cap while still preserving some quality depth.

Great Italian Thinkers: Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Mazzone

When Hudson, Hampton, and Thomson went down, I was pretty certain that the Braves' season was over. Never in a million years did I think I would be making the following comparison:

Hampton/Hudson/Thomson - 13-8, 194.2 IP, 187 H, 69 BB, 67 ER, 105 K, 14 HR, 3.10 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 4.84 K/9, 3.19 BB/9, .64 HR/9

Davies/Sosa/Colon - 7-4, 99 IP, 101 H, 41 BB, 39 ER, 69 K, 12 HR, 3.55 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 6.27 K/9, 3.73 BB/9, 1.09 HR/9

Admittedly, this is a small sample size of innings pitched and the numbers could skew dramatically in favor of the injured starters when opposing hitters have seen more of Sosa and Colon, as was the case with Kyle Davies. That said, this comparison is startling. The youngsters, consisting of a prospect who was thought to be 1-2 years away from the majors and two converted relievers, have come close to the production levels of three veteran, highly-compensated starters who were pitching very well when they were hurt. The youngsters have a significantly better strikeout rate, although they walk a few more hitters and are definitely not as good at keeping the ball in the park.

A couple other notes:

1. You know you suck when four scoreless innings, half of which took place when the game was no longer in doubt, are cause for a Kolb Regaining Confidence article. After he clearly couldn't handle the pressure of pitching in a key role for a team that expects to win, it's highly unlikely that I'll feel good with Kolb on the mound again.

2. It's always fun to look at the standings when your team is on a winning streak and today, when the Braves have the 7th best record in baseball, is no exception.

Speed Blogging from Cactus Car Wash

The wife and I just ran 6.2 miles with the rest of the city and are now waiting for Guderian (my car) to get cleaned. Thus, I will blog as many thoughts as I can in the next few minutes. Enjoy.

1. It occurred to me the other day that I listed Buddy Teevens on the worst coaches list and Stanford apparently agreed with me, since they fired him last year. Oops. I'm going to have to think about a new option.

2. Great win for the Braves last night, which they needed since the Nationals are apparently not going to lose for the next month. (That team has such an '02 Notre Dame vibe. I can't wait for them to get their 28-6 beating from NC State.) It's funny how one game, the difference between a winning and losing road trip, can mean so much to my mental outlook of the team. Or maybe that's just an indictment of me. Andruw continues to get the big hits that all the naysayers said he would never get and the makeshift rotation has been quite effective. Although the Braves are actually farther from first than they were last week, they've at least put a little distance between themselves and the rest of the division and they're in good shape for the Wild Card. Incidentally, this week, SI picks the Braves to finish second in the division to the Marlins and win the wild card.

3. I read SI's cover story on Michael Vick this weekend, but I didn't get anything out of it other than that Michael is defensive about his criticisms from pundits as a poor passer. (Gee, could it be because you have a disturbing number of 110-yard passing days? Remember your last game?) Vick points out that he tends to win and he's absolutely right about that. I remain conflicted. The Falcons are much better when he plays, but he's not very good at what quarterbacks are measured by.

Per the article, he's also a good guy who plays with children at his football camp, although I felt the disturbing gnaw of his publicists behind the scenes on the article. Or maybe the NFL wanted their marketing golden goose to look better after the Ron Mexico stories hit this spring.

4. If there's a better feeling in the world than turning the corner from Peachtree onto 10th Street and seeing that the remaining .6 mile is downhill, I'd like to know what it is.

5. Spike TV has a Bondathon today, which might keep me in front of the TV all day. On the other hand, they started with The Living Daylights and Never Say Never Again, so maybe I won't have to worry about watching much. Is On Her Majesty's Secret Service next? Do they have an aversion to showing Connery or Moore? (No, I don't consider Connery's comeback effort to be real Connery. It didn't start with the signature gunsight shot, there was an impostor Q and M, and they couldn't even come up with a new plot line.)

And my car is ready. Have a great 4th!

Stewart Mandel on Best and Worst Coaches

Mandel has a fairly solid effort at ranking the top coaches in college football here. My thoughts:

1. Are Lloyd Carr, Mack Brown, and Jim Tressel distinguishable at all? All three are winning at major programs that have natural advantages and are winning at levels roughly consistent with their programs' histories. Mack had to do more of a rebuilding job after the mess that John Mackovic left and he's doing much better than Texas did after Darrell Royal retired in a fit of "Barry Switzer is a sonofabitch" anger, but on the other hand, he doesn't have a single conference title to his name and that's often the best measure of a college football coach. Do we really want to credit Mack because Texas made dreadful hiring decisions before bringing him over from Chapel Hill?

Carr has more conference titles than either of the other two, but he has a slightly lower winning percentage. Michigan fans don't love him, other than the ones who desperately need to ingratiate themselves to him to maintain access to the program (read: Michigan.Rivals.Com writers), and they don't hate him, other than the emotional idiots who think that Michigan would never lose a game if only it had a competent coach because there is no other program in the country that can possibly compete. Carr wins, but he doesn't win big, mainly because of his pig-headed refusal to make significant changes on defense.

Tressel has won at an almost 80% clip, which is better than Lloyd, but his first four years are almost the same as Lloyd's and the seeds of his potential downfall - inherent conservatism on offense - have been evident for several years. How would he be viewed differently if not for that pass interference call on Glenn Sharpe in the first overtime of the Fiesta Bowl?

1a. And while we're at it, how is Mark Richt not ahead of (or at least equal to)Mack Brown, since he's won a conference title and has a similar winning percentage despite playing a tougher schedule? In defense of Mandel, Richt has coached during a period when Florida and Tennessee have both been down. Mack, on the other hand, has coached during a period when Oklahoma has been up. Change that one fact and Mack probably has several conference titles. Still, Richt has done just as well as Mack. This year, with Tennessee and Florida both up and Brian VanGorder gone, we'll learn a lot about Richt.

2. How is Jeff Tedford not in the top ten? He's given Cal their best period in eons. If all ten of the coaches on the list were free agents, along with Tedford, would you take Fulmer to run your program over Tedford? Or Dan Hawkins, who has essentially extended what Dirk Koetter started at Boise State (and Koetter probably didn't enter Mandel's mind when he was composing the list.) Why is Petrino better than Tedford? Is 10-1 at Louisville a bigger accomplishment than 10-1 at Cal with the loss on the road to the eventual national champions?

3. Amen to including Paterno on the worst coaches list. Mandel is absolutely right: there's no reason for a program with Penn State's natural advantages to have a losing record in four out of five seasons under the same coach. Their player development record is absolutely abysmal.

Not that you asked, but here's my list. I give the most credit to coaches who win at greater levels than their program has in recent years.

1. Pete Carroll - As much as the jury can be out on a guy who has won back-to-back national titles, I'm waiting to see if he can win without the best offensive coordinator in college football. Still, he knows defense and can recruit, which are the two most important qualities for a national championship program.

2. Bob Stoops - There's no reason to apologize for consistently great teams. He did seem to miss his brother last year as OU's defense regressed, but his good work in putting together a good offensive braintrust made up for that.

3. Urban Meyer - He won far more at Utah and BGSU than those programs had in recent memory. It's hard to argue with instant five-game improvements in two different places. Thank G-d he's not in South Bend.

4. Kirk Ferentz - He built Iowa the right way, focusing on the offensive and defensive lines. On the other hand, the same things were said about Barry Alvarez around the turn of the century and that was clearly his plateau. I'll be very interested to see how he does once he's deploying four- and five-star recruits instead of the high school tight ends that he turned into monster linemen.

5. Jeff Tedford - Last year's Cal team was the best I can remember seeing. Plus, Oregon's nosedive since Tedford left shows that he was largely responsible for that program's best period.

6. Frank Beamer - It is not easy to win in Blacksburg and he has alternated between good and great teams for a decade now. He had been somewhat forgotten until last year, when he reminded everyone that he created a very good program before Michael Vick became a Hokie in a pique because Virginia recruited Ronald Curry instead of him.

7. Ralph Friedgen - Has one year made everyone forget that he won ten games three straight years? And at Maryland, for G-d sakes. Ask George O'Leary about his talents.

8. Bobby Petrino - I'm waiting to see how he does when he steps up to a major program. Would LSU be pre-season #1 if they would have hired Petrino and also brought in Bo Pelini to run the defense?

9. Steve Spurrier - Last I checked, he is coaching this year. Do we need to be reminded that he won seven SEC titles in 12 years when he was the head man in Gainesville.

10. Mike Leach - Has Texas Tech ever been this consistently good? He's in a division with three programs that ought to eat TT's lunch every year and yet he still turns out good seasons. I suspect that he gets pigeon-holed as an offensive guru because of his crazy offense.

10a. Mike Price - He won at Washington State and UTEP, for G-d sakes! He ought to be higher on this list. Alabama going from Price to Mike Shula was like, oh, I don't know, Alabama going from Gene Stallings to Mike DuBose?

And here is the worst of the bunch:

1. Joe Paterno - As stated above, he's turned a great program into one of the worst in the Big Ten. Penn State shouldn't be having a good season every 3-4 years, nor should they be pointing at Northwestern as their big game this year or any year.

2. Rich Brooks - A completely inexplicable hire. Mel Brooks could achieve the same results. UK fans who renewed their season tickets this year are saints...or masochists.

3. Ron Zook - Any Gator fans want to back me up on this? He is supposed to be a defensive mind, but his defenses were all significantly worse than those of Steve Spurrier. He's also supposed to be a special teams ace, but his teams were a disaster in that department. Great hire, Illinois. Was Lou Tepper busy?

4. Buddy Teevens - Stanford is not bereft of talent and he's managed to put bad teams out every year. I have it on good authority that he was a complete joke at Tulane, as well, right down to dreadful pre-game speeches delivered in an amusing New England twang.

5. Bobby Bowden - Yes, FSU wins every year and Bobby deserves some credit for being a great closer in recruiting, but the guy routinely gives answers to sideline reporters that reflect that he doesn't know what's going on in the game. Plus, his refusal to demote his son for rank incompetence ought to be held against him. (In fact, it reminds me of Joe Paterno's loyalty to his son Jay, who must be the worst quarterbacks coach in the history of Western Civilization.) At this point, Papa Bowden is like Reagan in his second term. His country is prospering in spite of him.

Wading into the Blogpoll

In an effort to draw together the disparate fringes of college football blogosphere, the fine gents from Every Day Should Be Saturday are running a regular blog poll. After I got over the shock that a bunch of jean short wearers from Ocala have access to the internet for purposes other than googling digitally altered pictures of LeAnn Rimes, I was more than happy to join. Anyway, on with the show:

1. What's THE critical game of the season on the national scene?

My initial inclination is to say Oklahoma-Texas, both because the winner of that game will have relatively clear sailing to the national title game (especially if no one emerges from the Big XII North) and because this year is absolutely critical for Mack Brown in the Rabbi Hillel sense: if not now, when? Then again, I suspect that Texas will not be unbeaten by the time they get to the Red River Shootout.

LSU-Florida gets my vote, although I feel a little queasy about it because the two teams are likely going to meet again in December in Atlanta. There are few, if any, teams in the country that have recruited as well as these two over the past three years. Florida is getting a massive coaching upgrade, while LSU's coaching change isn't going to hurt them much because they are getting an offensive upgrade by adding Les Miles to Jimbo Fisher and the defense shouldn't drop off much with Bo Pelini calling the shots. Florida will take care of Tennessee (Urban Meyer against John Chavis? Please.), as will LSU and they'll meet in a battle of top five teams on October 15 in Baton Rouge.

2. What's the most critical matchup for your team?

Since I'm defining "my team" as the entire SEC, I think I answered this question above. However, if you must pigeon hole me as a Georgia fan, the most critical game for the Dawgs this year is the Auburn game. Losses to Tennessee and Florida can be stomached. Those teams are both top ten caliber and losing to them is no great shame, especially since one game is on the road and the other is in Georgia's house of horrors. A loss to Auburn, on the other hand, would be hard to take because it would firmly place Georgia back in the middle class behind LSU, Florida, and Tennessee. Auburn is rebuilding this year and the Dawgs owe them after getting abused on the Plains. If they don't win this one, then Georgia fans are going to start to question how much of Mark Richt's success was the result of his now departed defensive coordinator.

3. What's your wingnut upset prediction of year?

Remember when Nebraska had won two national titles in a row? Remember where their winning streak ended? Right, Sun Devil Stadium. Give me Arizona State over USC. The Trojans are going to miss their defensive tackles from last year, but more importantly, they are going to miss Norm Chow in a big way. Pete Carroll is a great defensive mind, but he needs a smart guy to handle his offense and he just lost the smartest guy in college football. Everyone is tagging USC's trip to Oregon as the upset game, but Autzen has been overrated for the past few years and USC is going to be paying attention for that one. The trip to Tempe, on the other hand, will be the second of two straight road games, it's against a team that the Trojans blew out last year so their guard will be down, and Dirk Koetter ought to be able to scheme some points against the USC defense. ASU will be battle-tested after their trip to Baton Rouge and won't be shocked by USC's speed.

The Hawks' Draft: a Heel, a Headcase, and a Guy Named Cenk

I can't hope to do a Draft Diary quite like Sports Guy and won't bother to try. In the back of my mind, I was happy that the Hawks weren't going to get a chance to draft Andrew Bogut because I didn't want our team to be on the receiving end of Sports Guy's barbs about the pick and how the franchise should move to Las Vegas. In the front of my mind, I was happy that the Hawks weren't going to take Bogut because he is nothing more than an average NBA center who will be viewed as a failure if he's anything less than an all-star. For confirmation of this fact, one needed look no further than the tepid highlight package that ESPN had for him. How is anyone supposed to be excited about a player whose college highlights apparently consisted of receiving lobbed entry passes and then laying in awkward shots over hopelessly overmatched MWC foes. 2005 will be remembered as the year of the Utah bust. (If I knew of a famous, voluptuous woman from Utah, I'd throw in a joke and a picture here, but I don't, so I won't.)

I remain excited about Marvin Williams. He's the best player in the Draft and the worst team in the league cannot do anything other than take the best player available. Sports Guy's criticism is that he didn't start for UNC, but that's simply a pro sports fan showing his ignorance of North Carolina basketball. Evidently, he's never heard the maxim that the only person who could hold Michael Jordan under 20 points per game is Dean Smith. UNC values seniority and there's no way they were going to start a freshman when they had two seniors and three junior first round picks in their lineup. Williams was on the floor at crunch time of their big games, which is what matters.

Mark Bradley had a couple interesting criticisms of the Williams pick:

a. "He's basically Shareef Abdur-Rahim." An interesting point, but wrong on a couple levels. Williams is much more athletic than Rahim. Shareef's drawback was that he was a skilled offensive player without great athleticism who couldn't play defense. Williams is a better jumper and a better defender. He also comes from North Carolina, which almost never produces a bust from a high pick. On the other hand, Williams only played there for one year, so it might not be fair to compare him to all the players who learned under Dean Smith for multiple seasons.

b. "The team still needs a point guard and a center." This is true, but misplaced for several reasons. First, the pick makes Al Harrington a potential trade commodity. Could the Hawks not get, say, Jarrett Jack for Harrington? (Of course, they would have to take some salary from Portland, probably in the form of registered sex offender Ruben Patterson and the Hawks would need to waive him immediately to protect their young players and local babysitters.) Even if they don't make the trade now, when some team feels they're one player away next January, Harrington will command an excellent price. Second, the Hawks can take a crack at addressing their problems at the one and five in free agency and they made themselves a lot more attractive by adding the best, most marketable player in the Draft. Third, even if they don't solve their problems next year, the Hawks aren't going to completely rebuild in a year. They probably won't make the playoffs next year, so they'll have another lottery pick to address the one and the five. Finally, positions are overrated. The Bulls won three titles with Steve Kerr at the point and Luc Longley in the pivot. Great players at the other three positions can cover for a lot of mistakes.

You'll notice that I'm not listing Salim Stoudemire as one of the potential solutions at the point. I know I supported him as a second round pick yesterday, but I started to re-evaluate. The stories about him being a headcase are worrisome, although Lute Olson seems to like him. The bigger concern is that I can't differentiate him from Shawn Respert, Randolph Childress, or the other littany of great college shooters who were too small to play the two and lacked the requisite passing and dribbling skills to play the one. Stoudemire probably can't create his own shot and, as his negative assist/turnover ratio last year shows, he doesn't do a very good job of creating shots for others. If Marvin Williams becomes a great scorer and forces double-teams, then Stoudemire will be the perfect guy to rain from behind the arc. Otherwise, the Hawks missed a chance. Chad Ford is very high on Roko Ukic as a point guard; we'll see if he's right that he would have been a better pick. Ronny Turiaf was also available and could possibly play center for the Hawks. (He has to be better than Jason Collier and Obinna Ekezie.)

Other thoughts from a Tuesday night at Philips Arena:

1. I found myself excited on the way down to the Arena, hoping desperately that the NHL solves their labor issues and I'm making the same walk in early October in the Thrashers jersey and the USA Hockey hat. Am I a complete sucker because I'll be even more excited than I was before when the team finally takes the ice? Most fans tend to respond to major labor imbroglios the way that wives respond to their husbands when they return from bachelor parties.

2. For a great illustration of Old School/Nu Skool, you should have seen the live war room cam shots last night. Billy Knight was sitting at the end of the table. Former Stanford student Josh Childress was crouched behind him, engaged in constant discussion about something. Too cool for school Josh Smith was sitting to Knight's left, playing a hand-held video game.

3. I'm not saying that Bob Rathbun is out of shape or anything, but when he was on the stage giving out signed bobbleheads and Tony Hawk tickets (yes, the Hawks didn't exactly behave like the Fat Girl last night; maybe the Williams pick has functioned like a drunken hook-up and convinced the team that they don't need to go the extra mile anymore) with a Hawks dancer assisting him, there was a certain unshakeable image in my head:



4. I couldn't tell what the crowd's reaction to Andrew Bogut going #1 was because I was too busy cheering my head off and humming "Ode to Joy." The crowd was educated enough to look bewildered when the Velociraptors took Charlie Villenueva.

Remember us?

You may have forgotten in light of the local basketball collective's big night assembling talent, but we just beat a division rival 9-1 for our fifth win in a row and we did it against the best pitcher in baseball, who happened to shut us out a few days ago.

A few thoughts from the game:

1. You'll have to trust me on this one, but I was going to predict that the Braves would do better against the D-Train after having seen him five days earlier, just like they got progressively better against Kris Benson last year over the course of a month, in which they saw him three times. Of course, predicting that the Braves would score more than zero runs is not unlike predicting that Phil Fulmer will wear something orange next year.

2. I keep fixating on the Braves' injured starters, but how much are they really being missed, given the way the fill-ins are pitching. Leo Mazzone has managed to turn Roman Colon, Jorge Sosa, and Kyle Davies into decent major league starters. Forget genius, Leo is approaching "Norman Einstein" levels. (I'm sure I just jinxed Roman for his start tomorrow by saying that.) Sosa has given the Braves a quality start every time out. The Sosa-Green trade appears to be a win-win for all involved. The Braves got a quality starter and freed up playing time for Wilson Betemit and Pete Orr, while Green got a starting gig and has given Tampa Bay some solid play (.749 OPS).

3. Is Florida the biggest fuck-up franchise in the NL? Aside from their two World Series titles (admittedly, nothing for the Braves or most of the rest of baseball to sneeze at,) they don't draw dick despite consistently good teams, they play in a dreadful stadium, they can't get their pro-business legislature to fork over any money for a new stadium, and for the crowning insult, their ground crew can't get a tarp onto the field properly, despite the fact that they ought to have more practice doing so than anyone else in baseball.

Now I know what it's like to be an Arizona Cardinals fan

It's Draft day for the Hawks, a.k.a. the most exciting day of the year. The consensus seems to be that the Bucks are going to take Andrew Bogut, leaving Marvin Williams to the Hawks. Chad Ford is reporting that the Hawks are having second thoughts and are considering Deron Williams and Chris Paul, but I suspect that the team is so divided between which point guard to pick that they'll likely split the difference and take Williams. I haven't changed my mind that that's the right thing to do because he's the best player in the Draft and also seems to be a humble, coachable, rootable guy, not unlike Josh Childress. That said, if the Hawks trade down and take Paul or Williams, that's fine too. Each player would serve a need and the team could get an extra first rounder for moving down a couple spots. I have a slight preference for Williams over Paul because after seeing Jason Terry and Tyronn Lue, I'm ready for a point guard who can keep the opposing point guard in front of him on defense.

The montage on Mayhem this morning of disastrous #2 picks (Sam Bowie, Len Bias, Shawn Bradley, Jay Williams, and Darko Mlicic) confirmed two things:

1. Don't draft a player who likes cocaine or motorcycles; and

2. Don't reach for a player because he's tall. (See: Bogut, Andrew.)

Part of the fun will also be waiting to see what the Hawks do with their second round pick. This is a very deep Draft and they ought to be able to find someone to go into their eight-man rotation with the #31 pick. Right now, I have my heart set on Randolph Morris: local kid, serves a major need at center, highly touted coming out of high school, and likely to be an NBA starter within three years. That said, there should be a number of interesting point guard prospects at #31. Nate Robinson, for instance, interests me, mainly because he was the key player in Washington going from a dreadful basketball program to a #1 seed in a matter of years. Salim Stoudamire is another interesting option, mainly because he can play some point, he can shoot (unlike just about anyone else on the roster,) and he could fill a Microwave role as the scorer off the bench.

Anyway, the wife and I will be hanging with Boris Diaw tonight when all the drama unfolds. G-d willing, I'll be linking this post in a few years when the Hawks are back in the playoffs and looking back at the night when the project took a giant step forward. If not, at least the wife and I will have the chance to overpay for chicken fingers and ask Royal Ivey how many "Royale with cheese" jokes he gets.

While we're naming streets after Andruw and Smoltz...

for coming through when the Braves needed them the most, how about a little alley for Horacio Ramirez, who has pitched well since he became the second-most senior pitcher on the staff. Last night's 1 ER, 7 IP performance was Glavine-esque: 14 of 21 outs were ground balls that the Braves' infield ate up. Horacio was living on the outside corner and didn't relocate to the middle of the plate when behind in the count. The fact that he did so after injuring his groin on Wednesday night was even more impressive.

And don't look now, but we could be seeing the beginning of a stirring from Furcal, who had a double, a triple, and a run-saving gem of a play in the hole to end the 7th inning last night. He has 13 hits in his past ten games, although he's only added three walks to that total. Maybe a .340 OBP over a ten-game stretch isn't anything to cause parades down Peachtree Street, but from a guy who looked completely lost at the plate when the Braves were suffering in May and early June, it's something. Jack McKeon has identified Furcal as the key to the Braves' offense; a summer run from the lead-off hitter would be critical (and further evidence that Bobby Cox is smarter than I am, since I wanted Furcal moved from the lead-off spot a week ago.

One other note: the Braves have won eight out of ten and in many of those wins, including the last two, the pattern has been to get a small lead, hold it with good pitching, and then feast offensively when the opposing starter comes out of the game. The '98 Yankees would be so proud.

What does Curacao's flag look like?

And can I bring it to a game to cheer for the Braves' centerfielder? Will a Johan Cruyff t-shirt suffice for a native of the Dutch Antilles? Or would I have to go all out with the Dutch decoration and dress a blow-up doll in the opposing team's jersey and then bat it around. (I kid you not, the Dutch love to do that. Imagine the faces of the ushers at the Ted if I showed up with a treat from Cheshire Bridge Road.)

Not a bad weekend, all things considered, for the Braves. They swept the Orioles, knocking Charm City's team from a half-game lead into a 2.5 game deficit behind the streaking Red Sox, a deficit that promises to only grow larger as the disparities between the starting rotations of the two teams play themselves out. Andruw is unconscionably hot right now, which is fun for all of us who defended him against the "unclutch" label he was stuck with in recent years. (I suppose that the "underachiever" label might have some merit after all, since he's so good now when the team really needs him, but I don't think it's fair to say that any time a player starts playing better, that means that he was underachieving before.) Smoltz is torrid as well, although I still can't figure out the rationale for leaving him in the game in the 9th inning yesterday when he was over 100 pitches and the team had a seven-run lead.

The crowds were also great this weekend, slightly better than the crowds that the team draws for its weekday afternoon playoff games. (Imagine that. If the games are played at a reasonable hour for people who actually have to work, fans in the "worst sports town in America" will turn out en masse to see the team.) Friday night was an excited, large crowd that reaffirmed for me how much I enjoy going to Braves games.

Other thoughts from Friday night:

1. Chris Reitsma was terrific, closing out the game with a strikeout and three weak grounders. As such, I was able to forgive his meltdown on Saturday, although the meltdown was a further reminder that he's brittle and can't be used too much. Ideally, the Braves will get their starting pitchers back from the DL and they can try Jorge Sosa as a spot-closer instead of a spot-starter. Back to Reitsma on Friday night, he induced two grounders to short in the 9th inning. Up to that point, Baltimore had not hit a single ball to the shortstop. Someone ask the Elias researchers how often a team goes eight innings without a groundball to short.

2. And back to getting pitchers healthy, good news from the invaluable Baseball Prospectus:

"Three Braves pitchers all threw on the side Sunday and all had positive results. Tim Hudson was able to throw without pain. The current plan is for another side session, a sim game, and a return just before the All-Star break. Mike Hampton also had a good side session. There's no timetable yet for his return. All signs now point to a rehab stint being needed before his return, putting him right back around the break, though he has more of a chance of recurrence than Hudson. The Braves are going to put Horacio Ramirez on the mound on Monday; his session must have been short. His groin is "100 percent," according to Ramirez, but watch the start closely."

Maybe a week and a half of very good play has caused me to go all loco, but the idea of Hudson, Thomson, and Hampton returning to a team with productive corner outfielders and a deeper bullpen (deeper largely as a result of their absence forcing pitchers like Sosa and Colon to grow up in a hurry) is downright tittilating to me.

3. The difference between Kyle Davies having a very good start and him having a bad start that the Braves survived because of their offensive outburst off of Hayden Penn was simply his inability to get Chris Gomez or Larry Bigbie for the final out in the 4th inning. If he does that, then his line would have been 6 IP, 2 ER instead of 6 IP, 5 ER.

Boise State-Georgia: Do we really have to wait 68 days?

I'm generally a fan of unconventional thinking; it's a quality too scarce in the media, let alone the oft-conservative, lower brain power college football media. However, there's still such a thing as "too cute" and this uninformed prediction of doom for Georgia against Boise State definitely qualifies. Why uninformed? I'm glad you asked:

1. While Jerry Maguire was had at hello, I was had with this poor argument:

"Georgia is a fairly low-tech outfit, but one blessed with outstanding athletic and talented personnel."

That might not be a bad description of Tennessee, a defense with great athletes that isn't coached especially well, but it certainly does not describe Georgia's defense. As has been pointed out in this space, Georgia has been extremely effective under Mark Richt at slowing just about every offense that it has faced. That includes holding Florida's outstanding 2001 offense, which College Football Resource dubs "high tech," to 24 points, 20.8 points below their average. Or how about shutting out a 2003 Clemson team that averaged over 28 points per game, on the road, no less. (I'd be willing to bet that College Football Resource would have dubbed Tommy Bowden's Tulane offense as "high tech." Funny what happened to him when he moved to a major conference.) Or how about holding national title-winning LSU to half their scoring average? How about Georgia holding Auburn scoreless and first downless in the second half of their 2002 game. That Auburn offense was coached by Bobby Petrino, who took his trade to a lower level (Conference USA) and all of a sudden became "high tech" according to CFR. CFR alleges that "Georgia under coach Mark Richt has never really been exposed to the kind of offense Boise State plays," but they have been exposed and done quite well against another of the offenses that CFR states are too sophisticated for poor, dumb Georgia.

There's a reason why the NFL was so interested in Brian VanGorder. The argument could be made that Georgia will suffer without VanGorder, but that's not the argument that CFR is making. And as Boise State shows, some coaches are replaceable...

2. If Boise State's offensive is so "high tech" and unstoppable, even to a team with far, far greater talent, then explain why Dirk Koetter, who developed the offense at Boise State and then imported it to the mostly defensively challenged Pac Ten, has only had good, but not spectacular results. Is it a coincidence that the Boise State offense is suddenly lower tech when employed against better coaches and defensive talent?

3. It fails to take into account the disadvantages that teams face in crossing multiple time zones. East coast teams often struggle on the West coast and vice versa. The factor will be even more significant for Boise State because the heat they'll encounter in the Deep South a few days removed from August will be something new, although the 7:15 ESPN kickoff will ameliorate that factor. The road disadvantage is especially important for Boise State, as one of the comments to CFR's post made clear:

"Boise dropped considerably last year relative to their form the two years prior--a quick look at their 2004 games away from the Smurf Turf shows this:

"@UTEP: 47-31 (was 41-31 before Hawkins, inexplicably, had the QB run a TD in on the last play of the game--and keep in mind this was before UTEP had any sort of self-confidence)
@Tulsa: 45-42
@San Jose St: 56-49 (2 OT)
@Nevada: 58-21

"Yes, Boise only played 4 road games last year, a schedule that would make HeismanPundit oh so proud.

"For the record, that's an average of 34 ppg against (not including OT), against a relatively weak slate of offenses--by which, I mean these four teams managed a total of 70 pts in 6 games against BCS opponents last season (though their production fattened up while playing WAC opposition)."

4. Then there's this gem of an argument:

"As for the Georgia offense---despite his acclaim as a quarterback and offensive guru, Mark Richt's only been so-so offensively at Georgia. His squads have put up decent but unexplosive averages of 27.6PPG, 32.1PPG, 26.5PPG and 27.9PPG. In four seasons the Bulldogs have cracked the 30 PPG barrier just once! Yet this outfit is annually regarded as one of the nation's elite offenses. The talent is there, but the production less so. But look at Boise State in that same time period; 34.3PPG, 45.6 PPG, 43.0 PPG and 48.9 PPG. Mind you, many would argue those points came against inferior defensive opposition, but two valid counter-arguments are that their league mates are also more accustomed to facing some kind of sophisticated offense in any given season, thus making them more prepared to face such an offense (yet judging by Boise's totals remaining high, completely incapable of stopping said offense). The other argument is that regardless of conference, any team that has a truly balanced offense (Hawai'i need not apply) and is putting up those kinds of numbers should reasonably be expected to put up similar totals in any other conference."

CFR is absolutely right about Mark Richt not being a great offensive coordinator. His skills as a head coach lie more in the underrated aspects of the position - hiring and maintaining a good staff, recruiting, etc. - and less in x's and o's. However, when CFR tries to justify Boise's offensive numbers as somehow not tainted by the fact that they play in the WAC, a conference that he later concedes is "offensive," his argument that Boise could score just as much on Georgia or against other SEC opponents borders on idiotic. Aside from the Tommy Bowden/Bobby Petrino/Dirk Koetter examples above, I can't fathom how CFR misses a simple point: Georgia is a lot more talented than Boise State. All the pretty schemes in the world don't matter if you can't block an opponent's pass rush. Man on man, Boise's offensive linemen will not be able to handle Georgia's defensive line. Steve Spurrier would have learned the same lesson if he would have taken Duke linemen into the SEC. With Florida talent, it was a different story.

All of this, by the way, is causing me to examine my belief that Urban Meyer's offense is going to take the SEC by storm. I think that Meyer's offense is better than Hawkins', but I need to think longer about this.

It's Chinese New Year in the Football Recruiting Blogosphere!

Nothing excites a subculture quite like mainstream attention. Witness the release of Bruce Feldman's piece on uber-recruit Myron Rolle and the attention it has received among football recruitniks. (The article is available only to ESPN Insiders, but an amusing take on it from a Michigan perspective, i.e. a smarter, more ironic and detached perspective, can be found here.)

The best part of the imbroglio, other than the fact that it has confirmed Lorenzo Booker's allegations that Tom Lemming is an Irish shill who tried to sway him from Florida State to Notre Dame (a choice that's eerily reminiscent of the "Hitler was worse!" "No, Stalin was worse!" debates that often roil politically motivated amateur history fans), has been to watch the reaction on the Michigan Rivals board. Initially, when the allegations solely concerned Lemming/ND and Oklahoma, the denizens on that board reacted with "I always knew it" and "the NCAA really ought to do something about those jerks." Today, it's become apparent that Michigan's Rivals moderators also get their ox gored in the article, which has led to "I don't believe the article" and "those Ohio State fans were right about ESPN the Magazine.

(Incidentally, ESPN the Magazine does, for the most part, suck, but mainly because it spends too much time on fawning puff pieces on (oft-misunderstood) athletes and not enough time making actual investigatory news, such as the Ohio State expose that quoted former Buckeye Sam Maldonado as asking "what kind of degree could I get from Ohio State if none of their credits are honored anywhere else?" [That's a paraphrase.])

Interestingly, the article was written by Bruce Feldman, who is generally seen as being in the corner of the Florida programs (especially Miami, hence his passionate defense of Miami for taking Willie Williams) and USC. Those programs are in the running for Rolle, the top corner/safety prospect in the Class of '06, but he is thought at this stage to be favoring Oklahoma and Michigan. The article doesn't say boo about the Trojans, Noles, Gators, or 'Canes, but then again, even if it did, that wouldn't make Rolle any more likely to choose those schools.

Sadly, is there anyone who believes that the allegations against Lemming would have been printed if he was still working for ESPN? Then again, maybe they cut him loose because of his Notre Dame lust.

As 8-0 losses go, this wasn't a bad one

I can't get too upset at the Braves for getting shut out last night because of the way Dontrelle Willis was pitching. There cannot be a better pitcher in baseball right now. Aside from his distracting delivery, he was locating his pitches perfectly and he was in command of every pitch in his arsenal. Barry Bonds would have struggled to hit him last night. The game further indicated how important it was for the Braves to win the first two games of the series so they didn't have to beat Willis.

The encouraging news last night was a third straight good start from Jorge Sosa, who went six innings and allowed three runs on two Miguel Cabrera homers. I suspect that Carlos Delgado's presence behind Cabrera was the root cause in the two homers. Delgado came into last night with an OPS over 2.000 against Sosa and at one stage had homered off of him in five straight at-bats. Sosa was probably distracted by his presence and desperate to throw strikes to Cabrera so there wouldn't be anyone on base when Delgado arrived. Other than his Delgado issues, Sosa was very good last night, allowing only six baseunners in six innings.

Adam Bernero blew up for his second straight appearance and the third in his last five. He now has an ERA of 11.91 for the month and 6.25 for the season. I suspect that he's a couple appearances from being pushed to Kolb-world at the end of the bullpen bench, especially if Blaine Boyer continues to pitch well and Cox and Mazzone develop some trust in him. Incidentally, Bernero's line would have been even worse if not for a truly terrific catch by Brian Jordan in the right-center field gap with the bases loaded and no one out. The fact that the blast to the alley came off the bat of punch-and-judy Juan Pierre tells you all you need to know about Bernero's effectiveness last night.

I love soccer, part two

Fans and police in Sao Paulo, not wanting to be outdone by rioting Argentine Boca Juniors fans last week, took matters into their own hands last night and upped the ante with the following actions against Argentine River Plate supporters:

1. Stoning the River Plate buses on their way into the stadium.

2. Police brutality in the form of an attack with truncheons, but naturally not before the police tore down the River Plate fans' banner. To their credit, the resourceful River Plate fans responded by tearing up the wooden bleachers on which they were being attacked and using them as weapons against the policia. (You aren't a true fan until you've used the seat for which you paid good money as a weapon against rampaging law enforcement personnel.)

3. Throwing cups of water "and other liquids" at the River Plate fans from the upper tier. (This resolves the problem I always have at college football games: I drink a lot at a tailgate and then have to go to the bathroom, but the lines are always long and I don't want to miss any of the game. It turns out that the solution is the "LSU Molotov Cocktail": pee in a cup and throw it at opposing fans.)

I can't wait for the return leg. You know you're in for a good match when the visiting team's director says "The best would be to arrive by helicopter just before kick-off."

Two personal notes on this story:

1. I wrote a paper in college for a Latin American History class on stereotypes of Latin football in the European media. Got an "A" on it, to boot, although I got a bunch of strange looks from other people in the class after they had written papers on trade and illegal immigration. Anyway, the point was that the European media always plays up stories like the one I just linked because they essentially view Latin Americans as one step removed from savages. The question becomes "what would happen if the same violence took place in Europe"?

2. The Argentina-Brazil rivalry has always been near and dear to my heart because I rooted for Brazil as a youngster, while my brother Dan rooted for Argentina. This sibling rivalry, stoked by Argentina's 1-0 win over Brazil in the 1990 World Cup in which Brazil squandered chance after chance and lost when Argentina scored on their only shot of the game, found an outlet in a lengthy Super Nintendo Super Soccer rivalry, in which we created a detailed backstory about a stadium that straddled the Brazil/Argentina border and death camps throughout Argentina for Brazilians and anyone who came into physical contact with Brazilians. There was even a backstory for fictional Brazilian sub Gasar, relating to his propensity for flatulence. I guess you had to be there. (PS - I usually lost.)