8 For '08

You probably don't read Brooklyn Heights Blog. I don't usually, but because my good friend Daniel Squadron was running for State Senate, I set up a Google Alert for his name to see what was being written about him in the press/blogs. And because Brooklyn Heights Blog wrote about his election extensively, I've become quite familiar with it.

I got another Google Alert that linked me to BHB today because they released "The BHB Ten," which is supposed to be the most influential and important Brooklyn Heights' residents of the past year, and I got a kick out of seeing Daniel as No. 1. Not so much because that blog is super-relevant or anything, but because he ranked one spot ahead of Paul Giamatti, who earned the No. 2 spot based on his portrayal of John Adams the HBO mini-series about our second president.

Since I didn't have a great idea for an end-of-the-year post, I decided to steal BHB's idea and do my 8 for '08. Unlike BHB, I am not limiting my list to my neighborhood. If I did, it would definitely include (in no particular order), my roommates, my ping-pong table, Bergen Bagel, the free popcorn at Fourth Avenue Pub, the Prospect Park loop, my roof, and Los Pollitos' $3.95 half-chicken.

Without further adieu (you're getting bullet points again, deal with it) . . .

8. The Tampa Bay Rays: Yes, a small-market team can finish ahead of the Yankees. All they have to do is be terrible for 10 years and be relatively successful with their plethora top-five draft picks. Seriously though, I want to thank them for keeping the Yankees out of the playoffs for the first time since people were wearing Cross Colours.

7. Nate Silver: It's fitting he comes in right next to the Rays because his PECOTA projection system said they would win 89 games. People said he was crazy. As he proved with fivethirtyeight.com, he's just smarter than everyone else.

6. The New "90210": It's so bad it's good! Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. It's pretty amazing how much the "90210" branding affects me. If this show were called "Matter Of Chance," and was about a group of high school kids form Chance, Mich., I would never watch it (even if it had the greatest trailer ever). But because it's "90210" and it's had some appearances from original cast members, I'm hooked.

5. Heartless Bastards: There's nothing quite like the feeling of discovering a new band and finding out you like pretty much every one of their songs. And then you go see them in concert and they rock your proverbial balls off. Their third album is due out February 3, and as I'm sure you can tell, I'm excited.

4. Joe Posnanski's Blog: Even though he's a contributor to Sports Illustrated, my magazine's competitor, I will say that he is the best sportswriter out there. When I read his blog, I'm constantly thinking, "I wish I could write like that." In fact, if you like this blog a little, you'll probably love his blog and never come back here again. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't have told you about his blog.

3. Shea Stadium: It was a bittersweet farewell for the legendary ballfield as the Mets choked away a postseason opportunity for the second straight September. If you care, you can read about my final experience at Shea. At least I went out on a high note.

2. Bruce Springsteen Concerts: I saw him live for the fourth time this summer, and it never gets old. In fact, if you want a great take on a Springsteen concert, check out Joe Posnanski's. Oh crap, I did it again.

1. David Tyree: If you've been reading this blog, you know my feelings on him. If you haven't been reading this blog, I wrote my definitive David Tyree post here.

Yes, I realize that this was a lot of links, but they were quality links. Just enough to get you through to ABCQ in 2009. Happy new year.

At The Movies, With Bullets!

Normally, I don’t like writing in bullet-point format. However, I have some thoughts about the holiday movie season, and I don’t really feel like weaving them together to make some broader point while maintaining the beautiful prose you’ve become accustomed to on this blog. As a result, you’re getting bullet points.

1. Oscar Buzz Makes Me Nauseous: For whatever reason(s), producers with aspirations of their film winning awards all try to get them released around the holidays. I’ve never really understood why, but that’s just how it is, and I’d estimate that about 60 percent of Best Picture winners were released after Election Day. The silliest thing about this process is that films start getting talked about as Oscar contenders before anyone has even seen them. Seriously, I’ve been reading about “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” and its Academy Award potential for months. Now it might be the greatest movie ever (I haven’t seen it yet), but why don’t we wait until it comes out before we start giving it the “Citizen Kane” treatment? Incidentally, I saw one review refer to it as "original." I don't know everything, but I do know that movies adapted from 87-year-old short stories are not original. Also, how did a movie based on a short story turn out to be 160 minutes? If you make a movie that long, you better be damn sure it's good. I plan on seeing the film because my girlfriend loves the short story, but the kind of "buzz" the film has received reminds of why the Oscars so stupid. It’s completely about hype, and never about the best movies. A perfect example of this phenomenon is . . .

2. The Dark Knight. It Was Stupid: The story had huge holes in it. The metaphors were heavy-handed. It was needlessly violent. The dialogue was moronic. It was just a bad movie, and I don’t get why it is receiving so much hype. In fact, just writing about it is reminding how much I despised it. If Heath Ledger hadn’t died, it wouldn’t be getting talked about for Oscars.

3. Marisa Tomei Is the Benjamin Button Of Movie Stars: A friend of mine was telling me about "The Wrestler," and he commented about how good Marisa Tomei looked, even as an over-the-hill stripper. That's the thing about Tomei, as the years pass, she just looks better and better. When she first emerged as Denise Huxtable's roommate on "A Different World," she was cute in a spunky New Yorker sort of way. That spunky NYC vibe was played up much more effectively during her Oscar-winning performance in "My Cousin Vinnie," and I remember thinking, "I never noticed it during 'A Different World,' but Marisa Tomei is kind of hot." And the recently-turned 44-year-old(!) just seems to be getting hotter.

4. Sean Penn Can Act: Another aspect of the Oscars that I don't like is that it's clear the best actors are not chosen. It's basically a pool of really famous people who got a big break at some point who happen to be in the right Oscar-type movie in a given year. There are hundreds of actors out there who are as talented (or better) than movie stars, they just never got that break for one reason or another. As a result, I never feel like movie stars are actually the best at what they do in the world, so it seems silly to heap even more unnecessary praise on them by giving them awards. Sean Penn is an exception to this.

I saw "Milk" last week, and he is simply exceptional. Unlike pretty much every other movie star this side of Meryl Streep, when I watch Sean Penn I feel like I am watching someone in the 99th percentile of actors in the world. The one major criticism I will make of the film is that the Jack character (played by Diego Luna) makes nails on a blackboard seem pleasant. But then again, the character is based on a real person, so maybe that is how he is in realy life. If that's the case, I wonder what Jack's reaction was to the film was. It's pretty clear that when Milk's friends spoke to the screenwriter, they did not speak kindly of Jack. If it were a work of fiction, I would say the writer should have left him out, but I guess they can't pretend Harvey Milk's long-time boyfriend didn't exist in a biopic about Milk's life. It's really a shame, because he brought nothing to the table.

***After writing this, I was reminded that Jack killed himself in the movie, so there was no way for him to react to the way he was portrayed. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the fact that he was dead emboldened the other people in Milk's life to talk shit about him.

5. Tropic Thunder Was Disappointing: To channel "David Spade's Hollywood Minute," I liked it better the first time I saw it, when it was called "Zoolander." Both are co-written and directed by Ben Stiller. Both feature a self-involved celebrity played by Stiller who doesn't realize he is past his prime and whose nemesis is another high-profile person of the same profession. One tries to spoof modeling (Zoolander), the other spoofs the movie business (Tropic Thunder), so a lot of the celebrity jokes are the same. Both feature a number of celebrities. Both have appearances by Christine Taylor, Stiller's wife. As an aside, besides playing Marcia Brady, has she ever been in anything when Stiller wasn't involved? She was once on Seinfeld, but Jerry Stiller was on that, so it doesn't count.

Unfortunately, "Tropic Thunder" is not nearly as successful of a parody as "Zoolander." For the most part, it was basically just a pointless action movie that wasn't even a parody of anything. There was great word-of-mouth about this film, but it was a let down for me.

6. I Rarely Like A Movie: I say this with full recognition that it's extremely difficult to make a really good movie that is successful in what it is trying to accomplish. As a result, I find myself truly enjoying about 10% of movies I see. In case you care, the only films I enthusiastically endorse from the past year are "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." Slumdog was a well-paced romantic adventure on par with "The Princess Bride." FSM was smartly-executed comedy that was both clever and amusing. Take that, Gene Shalit.

Flag Day

After Sunday night’s epic Giants-Panthers game, I’ve seen a number of columnists and pundits giving a list of “what they learned” from what could be a preview of the NFC championship. I’m not here to pick apart the pundits. Instead, I’m here to tell you what I learned from the game, besides the fact that Derrick Ward is the best player ever to come out of Ottawa University in Kansas. What I learned is this—penalties are pointless.

OK, that might be a bit of an overstatement, but I’m going for shock value here, folks. Let me explain.

Not all penalties are pointless. For example, it’s necessary to call false starts and offsides because if not, a team could get an unfair advantage on any given play. Additionally, I think it’s necessary to call egregious infractions that are dangerous, such as helmet-to-helmet hits, as well as obvious holding and pass interference penalties that directly and severely affect the play. Other than that, let them beat the crap out of each other without official interruption.

There were four penalties in Sunday night’s game. Four! No one complained, and the game was smooth without annoying stoppages that suck the life out of the football-watching experience. Typically, when they show replays of your average holding call, it looks like it could go either way, so why bother calling it? I can’t imagine there was never a case in the Giants-Panthers game when the officials could not have called illegal contact, or illegal motion, or illegal something. But they didn’t, and it made for a far more enjoyable viewing experiencing.

Furthermore, there are also a good chunk of penalties that no fan gives a rat’s ass about anyway. Seriously, who would really care if the NFL stopped calling illegal man downfield, illegal touching (although that one makes me chuckle), or illegal formation? I’ve watched football my entire life, I consider myself a relatively savvy fan, and I am still not entirely sure what makes a formation illegal, and I am not even sure what calling it is supposed to protect. In fact, I’ve asked people in my office who cover the NFL, and they can’t answer the question. When David Letterman make his “Top Ten Signs You Know Your Rule Is Pointless,” I’m pretty sure, “journalists who cover the sport for a living can’t explain it” would be high up there. I guess that’s a long way of saying that particular infraction is a waste of time.

In all seriousness, I think an official’s job in both football and basketball should be to keep both teams honest, without inserting themselves into the game unnecessarily. To me, there is nothing more annoying than officials taking the game into their own hands with a ticky-tack call that has little bearing on the play, such as a holding call away from the play, or an illegal contact, which you could literally call on 90% of pass plays if you wanted to. I remember watching the Giants-Eagles game two weeks ago, and there were fifteen penalties called, about half of which were accompanied by some sort of conference by the officials that made the already boring game drag on even longer. My plea to NFL officials is to get out of your own way, and don't bother calling about half the penalties you usually call. Everyone will be happier. Trust me.

To be fair, I’ll recognize that the Giants (my team) benefited from the two biggest penalties called last night. One was a pass interference in the end zone in the fourth quarter that put the Giants at the Panthers’ one-yard line, and another was a holding call on the Panthers’ Steve Smith that put Carolina back on the outer limits of Jon Kasay’s field goal range just a couple of plays before he missed a field goal that would have won the game. However, those were both pretty severe penalties, with the holding being particularly criminal. That being said, I might not be writing this had those two calls not gone in the Giants’ favor. But if you’ve watched football with me before, you’ve probably heard me rant about how too many stupid penalties are called. Last night was a good example of the type of officiating the NFL should strive for.

During the broadcast, John Madden kept saying that the crew on the field (I think it was Walt Coleman’s crew) had called the fewest penalties in the league. Keep it up guys, you’re doing a heckuva job.

***After writing this post, I looked up Walt Coleman and discovered he was the referee for the legendary “Tuck Rule” game, as well as last week’s controversial Ravens-Steelers tilt that ended on a controversial replay overrule. As it turns out, many people (or at the very least Raiders and Ravens fans) think he is Satan in Zebra stripes, and possibly the worst ref in the league. So maybe he isn’t adept when it comes to interpreting instant replay, but I’m a fan of the way his crew makes, or should I say doesn’t make, calls on the field.

Snow Blows

I don't mean to generalize, but all women (including my lovely girlfriend Margaret!) love snow. How do I know this? I just do. This was made particularly clear when it snowed for the first time about two weeks ago, and at least three women I am friends with on Facebook changed their status to some variation of, "Yay, it's snowing!!!!!"

Now before you go calling me some sort of grinch, please let it be known that I like snow in certain situations. When I'm skiing, when I was a kid, when he's singing "Informer," and also any time I don't need to do anything practical. However, as I was reminded again today as I was trying to run errands during lunch, snow is typically a giant pain in the ass.

I was trying to get to the toy store because I am going to a party in which the hosts asked all guests to bring something for the "Toys For Tots" program. Being the benevolent fellow that I am, I was happy to oblige, even though it meant braving the insanity of Kay-Bee Toys a week before Christmas. Unfortunately, the snow made this errand take almost twice as long as it should have. You see, I like to do things quickly and efficiently, and snow just slows everything down.

On a side note, I am going to make a terrible holiday-shopping parent. I was in Kay-Bee for 15 minutes, and I wanted to strangle at least 10 people in what can best be described as a low-level riot. Either I'm doing my shopping in July, or my kids aren't getting anything. Sorry in advance, kiddies! When I finally got the front of the line, some guy walked up to me and said, "hey, I don't have time to wait on this line. If I give you $20, will you pay for this $13 toy when you're checking out your items?" It was quite a dilemma, but I decided to decline the $7 profit (probably $5.50 after tax) out of fear of incurring the wrath of the scores of parents waiting not so patiently behind me.

But the Kay-Bee melee wasn't even the worst part, it was the snow. Everyone was walking slower than normal (don't get me started on the pussies who carry umbrellas during snow), there were slushy puddles wherever I stepped, and traffic slowed to a halt. It's the traffic that actually makes it hard for me to understand how anyone can like snow in an urban area. Not only does it slow down traffic, but it also causes accidents! If you say you love snow in New York City, you're essentially saying you are unaffected by car crashes.

If I have time tomorrow, I might take a stroll up to Prospect Park. I'm sure it will be lovely because not every inch of snow will be trampled on, and I won't have to worry about traffic deaths while I'm there.

So, to sum up.

Times snow is good: Skiing, when you're a kid, Informer, rural areas.

Times snow is bad: All other times.

Is Strong Island For Real? Not So Much.

I have been to a lot of New York sporting events in my life. As a rough estimate, I’d say probably 116 Mets games, 34 Knicks games, 15 Yankees games, eight Rangers games, six Jets games, three Cyclones game, two Giants games, the ECAC Holiday festival, the Jimmy V Classic, the Preseason NIT, Coaches V. Cancer Classic, and a Staten Island Yankees game. I may be missing a few here or there, but I think that pretty much covers it.

Anyone, one thing I had never done . . . oh wait, I went to the Army-Navy game at the Meadowlands once, and I used to go to a lot of Columbia football games when I was about nine years old because I was oddly obsessed with their record losing streak.

Anyway, despite all of these New York sporting events I’ve been to, I’d never been to a New York Islanders game until last night. For reasons I probably shouldn’t divulge because of my job (don’t worry, it’s not that exciting), I had the opportunity to attend the Islanders-Capitals game on Tuesday. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t make the trek out to what the legendary Steve Somers of WFAN refers to as the Mausoleum, but the tickets were free, and they were amazing seats. So hey, why not?

I’d actually been to the Nassau Coliseum once before for Hot 97 Summer Jam 2000, but I had no real recollection of the venue. For rap aficionados, Summer Jam 2000 was when the whole Nas-Jay-Z beef started. Jay-Z performed “The Takeover” for the first time, and put photos of Mobb Deep’s Prodigy in ballet clothes up on the JumboTron. Rap history, and I was there. Yeah, that’s right.

What I had forgotten about the Nassau Coliseum is that it’s a complete dump, and it’s hard to understate that. You walk in, and it’s kind of hard to believe that a pro team from a “major” sport plays there. It looks worn down from the outside, and the inside is just as dingy. The fabric on the seats looks like it might split any minute, and everywhere you look the paint is either cracked or peeling. I relayed my feeling about the venue to a colleague of mine who used to cover the NHL for Sports Illustrated. He said, “What’s funny is that I once referred to the Coliseum as ‘grimey’ in SI about 15 years ago, and I thought the Islanders PR people would be mad, but in fact they took it as a compliment. It was a point of pride for them.” After hearing that, the whole place made a lot more sense.

During the height of my sports fanaticism (circa 1991-1997), I used to be a die-hard Rangers fan. Part of that had to do with the fact that they were really good during that era, and part of it was because I was even more obsessed with sports than I am now. Seriously. At that point in my life, I hated the Islanders as much as any team in professional sports. No team of mine had a rival as intense as the Islanders, and I couldn’t stand the sight of them or the fans. As I realized last night, I no longer give crap about the Islanders. I still hate them more than a team like the Minnesota Vikings, but probably not as much as the Florida Marlins. I’m still a Rangers fan, but I certainly follow them a lot less closely than I used to, and since the Islanders have been irrelevant for at least a decade, I just can’t muster any hatred for them. In fact, when they fell behind 4-2 against the Caps, I actually found myself rooting for them to tie up the game. And even though it was mostly because I just wanted to see shootout, I’m pretty sure my 14-year-old self would never forgive me.

It ended up being a pretty exciting game as the Isles tied it up at four with a couple of minutes left. I was feeling pretty good about seeing a shootout until Alex Ovechkin scored with 10 seconds left to give the Caps a 5-4 victory. Even though I was disappointed about not getting to see a shootout, at least I can I tell my grandkids I saw Ovechkin score two goals in a game. OK, maybe that won’t happen, but he is really impressive. I’m no hockey expert, but what I find so amazing about Ovechkin is that he is clearly the best player whenever he is on the ice. It’s kind of like watching a youth soccer game, and there is always that one kid who is visibly better than anyone else. It’s rare to see someone that stands out that much in pro sports. College, yes, but not pros.

My Jerry Springer final thought on the experience is that there is always a time-warp element to any hockey game, particularly on Long Island. You rarely see dudes with mullets and moustaches on the street, but you go to a hockey game and they're everywhere. I felt like I was an extra in Clerks. Snoochie boochies.

I Got The Hook-Up

While I probably don't read The New York Times in as much detail as I should, I do make a point to look at nytimes.com at least once a day. If nothing else, I glance at the headlines to make sure I'm at the very least aware of the latest financial crisis or genocide. Also, if I have an extra second I like to look at the list of the ten most e-mailed stories. These are rarely the most important things in the paper, but I like to get a sense of what people think are the stories worth sending to their friends and then mentally mock those people.

As an aside, who actually sends stories via the website? I simply just copy and paste a URL if I want to pass it along. It seems a lot easier. Is it possible I'm just smarter than everyone else? Discuss.

Usually the most sent stories include a number of frivolous features that Times' readers find cute. The one about the 12-year-old food critic comes to mind. In addition to the fluff, there are typically a number of Op-Eds listed among the most e-mailed stories. Say what you want about the Times' op-ed page—it's too liberal, Maureen Dowd is annoying, etc—but it's got clout. And even if you're an arch-conservative, you probably read the page and your opinions are formed, or at least informed, by what you see there. And because of the page's prestige, I can safely assume that there are hundreds of writers who would love to get a crack writing along side Krugman, Kristof and Kristol. (Hmm, maybe KKK isn't the best alliteration.) Because of this prestige, I have to say I was appalled by Sunday's third most e-mailed story, which I came across while casually surfing the web during the Giants' second consecutive whupping at the hands of an NFC East foe.

The column (which moved up to No. 2 on the most e-mailed list as of Monday afternoon) was called "The Demise Of Dating" and it was written by some guy named Charles M. Blow. And yes, I will resist the urge to make an obvious joke that equates the quality of the column with the writer's last name.

Blow begins his piece by writing: "The paradigm has shifted. Dating is dated. Hooking up is here to stay. (For those over 30 years old: hooking up is a casual sexual encounter with no expectation of future emotional commitment. Think of it as a one-night stand with someone you know.)"

Maybe I'm just sensitive because I'm getting close to the age of 30, but who under the age of 60 doesn't know (or can't figure out) what "hooking up" means? Also, you can hook up with someone you don't really know, so he even got the definition wrong. This was an awful attempt to be funny, but I would have forgiven it had the rest of the piece been interesting or informative. It wasn't.

Blow goes on to cite one study that says sex is down, and then another that says sex with strangers is down, but sex with friends is up. The rest of his research relies on calling up some psychologist from from La Salle University who wrote a book about hooking up on college campuses. Apparently dating has changed since Blow was a lad, and while people once dated a while before having sex, they now "hook up" for a while before deciding if they want to date.

Even if there is truth to this trend, isn't this something we've seen before? I'm not old enough to remember, but my understanding was that during the 1960s and 1970s, when people weren't having orgies, they were taking on a new partner every other night and experimenting with various sexual techniques and positions while high on a variety of mind-expanding drugs. OK, maybe that's an exaggeration, but casual sex before dating is not a new phenomenon. Anyone my age knows this, and people old enough to remember the 60s and 70s know this, so I can't figure out who the hell were the people who found this story so compelling that they said to themselves, "Wow, my friend [insert name] would really find this enlightening!"

Considering the column's popularity, I guess it's hard to quibble with the Times decision to run it. But on an elite op-ed page, this seemed like a poor use of space. It was basically some guy bemoaning the fact that dating isn't the same as when he was young. Next up: His column about when pitchers used to throw complete games.

I had never seen Blow's byline before, so I decided to check out his bio. Turns out he is the "visual Op-Ed columnist." I have no idea what that means, and there was certainly nothing visual about this column. On the plus side, if this is what the Times deems worthy of its Op-Ed page, that should give hope to the hundreds of writers trying to get a piece in there.

Putzing Around

I'm not sure I have another detailed breakdown of the Mets' bullpen in me right now (I will at some point, just not now), but after hearing about the their acquisition of J.J. Putz, I have a few thoughts.

1) Based on my post from this morning, I get the sense Omar Minaya is reading my blog. Because that incredibly convoluted trade is the type of creativity I was talking about.

2) I'm certain that the people who write headlines for the The Daily News and New York Post are extremely excited about the impending J.J. Putz era. What's going to be the headline the first time he blows a game? My roommate and I are pretty certain "What A Putz" is the odds-on favorite.

3) Endy, Godspeed. Even though I missed your legendary catch because I was trying to beat the Shea Stadium bathroom line by taking a mid-inning bathroom break (true story), you will be forever be a part of Mets lore. And to clarify, I wasn't actually in the bathroom, I was buying beers on my way back from the bathroom when Endy threw his glove over the now-demolished left-field wall to rob Scott Rolen of a home run. Too bad you weren't tall enough to take one away from Yadier Molina as well. Sigh.

4) The Mets bullpen will be better this year, and they didn't have to give up any integral parts to make that happen. However, I'm pretty sure Aaron Heilman will be a decent starting pitcher in Seattle and will be mentally giving the city of New York a giant "fuck you" the entire time. I won't blame him.

Sweet, Another Closer I Can Yell At!

As you can imagine, the e-mails have been pouring in from readers anxious to hear my take on the Mets signing of closer Francisco Rodriguez. I didn't want to type up my thoughts while it was still unconfirmed because I knew it was going to be a rant, and it would be a shame if a 1,000-word opus went to waste. But now that the deal is official, I can chime in. Buckle up.

Anyone who has ever had a discussion with me about closers knows how overrated I think they are. Even before I was devouring Bill James and Baseball Prospectus, I sensed that these guys were frauds. I've never been able to grasp why people seemed to think closers possessed some sort of special ability to get the final three outs, when every year we watched a new batch of retreads and failed starters rack up 30 saves. Closers are made, not born, and you can't convince me otherwise. I'd rather have my best reliever used in a variety of high-leverage than wasting them on protecting two and three-run leads in the ninth. You don't need to pay someone $10 mill to protect a two-run lead, any stiff can do that.

That being said, I recognize that there is something reassuring about having a reliable guy in the ninth inning. The later the game goes, the more emotionally invested you become, and blowing a lead in the sixth inning is not nearly as heart-wrenching as doing it in the ninth. Fortunately, the Mets are in a position in which they have the luxury of spending lots of money on a "proven closer" without it preventing it from making other moves. And when it comes down to it, that is really what defines a bad move—it handcuffs you.

And as much as I despise the thought of spending big bucks on a closer and have hated Billy Wagner from day one as a result of it, I don't think the Mets deal for K-Rod is terrible. Even though I don't believe closing games involves some sort of special intangible ability, a lot of front office folks do. And if you buy into that voodoo BS, K-Rod is good choice.

Not only is he young (27), but among full-time closers, only Mariano Rivera and Joe Nathan have a higher save percentage over the past three seasons than Rodriguez' 89.8% conversion rate. I've come around to the belief that since pretty much all closers are asked to do is protect leads, save percentage is not a bad way to evaluate them. While it might give me an ulcer, I ultimately don't care if my closer allows two runs every time he is given a three-run lead as long we end up winning. And even though Billy Wagner has shinier peripherals, K-Rod has done a better job of protecting leads. That said, save percentage is not a good predictor of performance, and K-Rod's declining K-rate the last couple of seasons gives me pause. But here's the thing: In this market, $37 million over three seasons isn't that much for a closer with K-Rod's resume. And as much as it pains me to admit this, it's actually a bargain. Last season, Francisco Cordero got $46 million from Cincinnati for four years, and they have a limited payroll. So yeah, I think the Mets did OK here, and we can all thank the recession. See, it's not all bad.

The one thing that bothers me about this deal is how predictable it was. When Wagner was ruled out for 2009, I remember saying to my roommate, "Alright, K-Rod's coming here." And I know I wasn't alone. Every Mets fan with half a brain could see this coming from a mile away because the front office seems completely unwilling to think outside of the box in any way, shape or form. Unlike other free agent relievers (Wood and Hoffman, for example), K-Rod was offered arbitration by the Angels. That means the Mets will forfeit a draft pick, in this case a first-round pick, to bring in Rodriguez. For $37 million, roughly $12.3 mill per year, I'm pretty sure the Mets could have brought in at least two good relievers who would not have cost them a draft pick while still having enough money left over to spend some extra dough on the draft, something they've been unwilling to do in the past. By doing that, they not only would have saved themselves a draft pick, but they also would have shored up their bullpen and farm system depth, which are the organization's two biggest weaknesses. But no, creative thinking like that doesn't put you on the fucking back page, so instead the Mets just throw major bucks at big-name free agents and hope that the Mike Lupicas of the world will bite and congratulate them for filling their holes and finding a "winning player," even though those same columnists will be yelling at them in July when Scott Schoenweis is forced to face Albert Pujols with the bases loaded and he gives up a Grand Slam that lands in a North Fork winery.

The not-so-little secret is that bullpen depth is still a huge problem. It was before Wagner went down, it was just exacerbated after his injury. And maybe Minaya et al. discussed some alternatives to signing K-Rod and decided that getting him was the best thing they could do. I just won't really believe it until the Mets show some creativity in building their roster, which is something they've lacked since God knows when.

But the Mets have an incredible four-man core in Reyes, Wright, Beltran and Santana. If there was ever a time for the Mets to spend insanely, it's now. So yeah, go for it. Spend big, and don't waste four superstars in their prime. Don't stop now, though. Go sign 20 more relievers and make sure we aren't left with a bunch of platoon specialists who can't pitch a scoreless inning. Relievers are unpredictable, so if you sign 20, five will pan out. And yes, that's scientific.

But please, for the love of all that is holy, don't sign Raul Ibanez.

Besos,
Matt

Bless This Mess

If you’re a college football fan, you’re probably sick of hearing everyone’s take on the BCS. Well, here’s one more!

Note: I actually kind of like the BCS because it creates debate. Spirited debate is the best part of being a sports fan, and it's not like other playoff systems give us the best team as champion every year—hello 2006 St. Louis Cardinals! Not that I'm bitter or anything. Moving on.

It’s somewhat moot now that they beat Alabama and are headed to the title game, but how the fuck did the AP voters have Florida over Oklahoma and Texas going into yesterday’s game? I’m not sure I would have even noticed this except for CBS trying to trick us into thinking the SEC title game was No. 1 against No. 2, because that is what they kept putting on the screen—No. 1 Alabama against No. 2 Florida. And it was only then that I realized Florida was No. 2 in the AP poll.

I’ll usually assume the SEC is the toughest conference, but it seemed like it was down this year, and Florida had by far the worst loss (Ole Miss at home) of all the one-loss teams. So how the hell did the voters have them ahead of Oklahoma, Texas, USC and Penn State. People always blame the faceless computers for the quirkiness of the BCS, but the voters are imbeciles.

Another example of this imbecility is how Texas’ loss to Texas Tech was treated. Going into that game, Texas was No. 1 in the AP Poll and Texas Tech was No. 6. After the game, Texas Tech was No. 2 and Texas was No. 5. Really, is that what we learned from that game?

Look at it this way. It was the biggest home game in the history of Texas Tech. They had an insane home-field advantage. They played as well as they could possibly play. Texas came out flat. And yet despite of all that, the Red Raiders needed a dropped interception by Blake Gideon (yes, I had to look him up) and an ridiculous pass into double coverage just to sneak past the Longhorns. And yet the Raiders vaulted past the Longhorns in the minds of the AP voters. But if Gideon catches the easiest INT of his life or if that desperation heave is batted away from Michael Crabtree, Texas stays at No.1 and Tech drops. Really? It just doesn’t make sense.

If those two teams played on a neutral field 10 times, I think it's pretty clear Texas would win at least seven times, and therefore, are the superior team. As far as I’m concerned, that game taught us that despite the narrow loss, Texas is better. Instead, voters take every result as an indication of distinct superiority by one team even though that isn't often the case. And what ends up happening is what happened with Texas, who never recovered from their loss to Texas Tech, even though they essentially won the game.

I can understand why votes dropped Texas below Texas Tech after that game, though I wouldn't have blamed anyone for keeping the Longhorns ahead. I certainly don't see how Texas should have fallen below any one-loss team, yet they fell one spot below a Florida team that had lost at home to Ole Miss. WTF?!?!?

Maybe it would not have mattered and Florida would have eventually overtaken Texas in the BCS, but I still think Texas got screwed even beyond Oklahoma somehow sneaking past them in the BCS rankings. The writers will write column after column blaming the computers for all the flaws of the BCS, and it’s simply a ploy to distract everyone else from their stupidity.

Vampire Weeknight: As If I Never Left

In the time since my last post, a woman could have conceived and given birth (albeit about four weeks early). But in the last few weeks I keep finding myself saying, “you know, that would be a fun blog topic.” As a result, I’ve decided to give this thing another go. Hopefully it will take this time.

As some of you might know, during my eight-plus month hiatus I turned 29 years old. So did Tracy McGrady. I bring this up because I remember when he was drafted in 1997, my thought at the time was, “holy shit, he’s my age.” Up until that moment, every athlete I had every watched was definitively older than me. And even though McGrady is technically a few months older than I am, he is, for all intents and purposes, my age.

It took a few years, but I finally got used to the fact that a lot of athletes were going to be younger than me, and I have know spent a good portion of my career interviewing and writing about such athletes. It’s no longer a big deal. When it comes to musicians, however, it’s a different story.

This hit me last night when I went with a few friends to go see Vampire Weekend. They are one of those bands that are really popular in certain circles, but totally anonymous in others. For example, among 20-year-old white preppy types in NYC, they’re huge. But I’m guessing no one in Omaha knows who the fuck they are. Incidentally, and this goes back to an earlier post, I just wrote that last sentence before I saw on their Wikipedia page that the founder of “Stuff White People Like” named Vampire Weekend the whitest band ever.

Anyway, as I watched them on stage, I simply could not get over the fact that they are only about 22 or 23 years old. Rock stars are supposed to be people you can kind of worship, and I can’t bring myself to get that worked up about a bunch of semi-hipster Columbia grads six years younger than me. I’ve always been into musicians that are older than me, so this was never really an issue before. Don’t get me wrong, they sounded really good and put on a solid show. But I can’t go nuts for them they way I would at a Springsteen show.

Vampire Weekend still only has one album, so they had 12 songs to play, and that is all they played (plus one cover, which I’ll get to in a minute). At one point the lead singer said, “yeah, we don’t really have any more songs to play. Hopefully the next time we come to New York we’ll have another album and we can give you a real show.” Real show? What the fuck did I just pay $35 for?

Another thing that struck me most about their performance is that they sounded almost exactly like they do on their record. In some ways this is good because I like the way they sound on their record. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have paid $35 to see them. On the flip side, it makes it seem almost pointless if they are just going to sound like the record. In many ways they reminded me of the early Beatles in that they have floppy haircuts, and they play really short pop-sounding guitar songs. It’s like that footage you see of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show when they came out and rocked out “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” just like it sounded on 45. The biggest difference—other than The Beatles being legends—is that I’m pretty sure The Beatles didn’t have a string section. And if they did, I’m pretty sure one of them wouldn't have worn a Kevin Dyson Tennessee Titans jersey. That was weird.

The highlight of the show was the encore, when Vampire Weekend covered “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac. What was so great about it is that I have always loved that song, but never knew the freaking title until the lead singer, who sounded remarkably like Stevie Nicks, said it. Who needs Shazam?

Finally, A Post About Baseball!

Thanks to the opportunity to chat with scouts, coaches and player development types, I learned a lot about baseball during my time at Baseball America. Above all else, I discovered what seems to be the most important tenet in running an organization: know what you have.

It seems pretty basic, but it’s also something that can be overlooked. Before you can go scouting players in other organizations, it’s imperative to have a strong understanding of the value and potential of the players in your organization. When John Schuerholz and Walk Jocketty were GMs of the Braves and Cardinals, they were regularly lauded for knowing which prospects to trade when their value was at its highest, and which to hold on to. That’s because they knew what they had.

The reason I bring this up is because as a Mets fan, I worry that GM Omar Minaya is sorely lacking in this regard, particularly when it comes to pitching. As evidence, I’ll point to three trades he made last offseason that involved 10 players, nine of which were pitchers.

There was the trade in which the Mets sent Brian Bannister to the Royals in exchange for Ambiorix Burgos, and the deal that saw them send Henry Owens and Matt Lindstrom to the Marlins for Jason Vargas and Adam Bostick. And there was also the swap with the Padres in which the Mets dealt Heath Bell and Royce Ring for John Adkins and Ben Johnson (the lone non-pitcher).

Of the five players the Mets received, not one of them is currently on their 25-man roster. Conversely, Bannister looks to be emerging as a solid mid-rotation starter, Bell was one of the best relievers in baseball in 2007, and Lindstrom also came on strong to post a 3.09 ERA with 62 strikeouts in 67 innings last year.

These deals are forgotten to some degree because they don’t get you on the back page like the Johan Santana deal, but Omar appears to have gotten fleeced in all of them. That’s a strong indication that he and his player development staff do not have a strong feel for the talent of the players in their system. And it also means that their scouts are unable to discover diamonds in the rough in other organizations.

When you consider the problems with pitching depth the Mets are facing, that’s troubling.

I don’t discount the chance that Vargas and Bostick could still become solid back-end starters, but that’s looking pretty unlikely. Burgos, when healthy, still has upside, but he’s still erratic. If all goes well, he’ll have one season as good as Bell’s 2007 season.

Since he arrived, Omar has been building this team for the now, yet he keeps on trading away pitchers that are ready to fill in immediately at the big league level.

Too Good To Be True

It's been 18 hours, and I still can't get over how good last night's season finale of "The Gauntlet" was. Did I say "good?" I meant "great." I knew there was a reason why I continue to grind through season after season of The Real World/Road Rules challenges, and the payoff is episodes like the one I watched last night.

If you didn't watch, here's a synopsis: The Veterans dominated the entire season, and were successful in getting rid of perceived weak links from their team before the final mission. However, they didn't get rid of a fat guy named Eric who ended up collapsing in the midst of a long run and had to go to the hospital. After Eric got carted off, they still tried to finish the race and ended up passing the Rookies anyway and finishing before them. They thought they might actually get the win, but they were disqualified because not everyone on their team finished.

I am not sure what was more amazing, the fact that The Veterans didn't realize early in the season that an obese out of shape guy might be a huge liability in the final mission, or that they actually thought they might be credited with a victory after coming back to win once the obese out of shape guy was rush to the hospital.

The Veterans were so cutthroat the entire time in their effort to "trim the fat," yet they seemed to miss the giant albatross that was getting wasted with them every night. And at somewhere close to 300 pounds, Eric is hard to miss. Seriously, did they think Katie or Coral would have actually slowed them down more than Eric?

Don't get me wrong, Eric seems like a fun guy, and that's probably how they justified not trying to eliminate him. That, and the fact that they were scared to go against him in a Gauntlet. But seriously, who would you be more scared of in a physical competition, Eric, or someone like CT or Brad? Even if the event severely favored a heavy person, you could beat him just by waiting (no pun intended) him out.

It was pretty amusing when they cut back to the scene from an earlier episode when Johnny Bananas pointed out how much of a liability Eric would be in a final mission. I am sure Johnny laughed as he watched last night's episode. Or at least I hope he was laughing at his teammates, not at Eric going to the hospital. That would be mean.

But probably not as mean as the rest of The Veteran team who basically tried to drag Eric around even though it was clear he was not going to make it and might be in serious physical danger. Brad was the only one of them with even a mild degree of sympathy, while the rest were obsessed with getting their 10 percent of $300,000.

When you consider how obnoxious they were last and through the entire season, losing served them right.

As for the Rookies, they should be thanking their lucky stars that Frank wouldn't let them strike a deal with Danny for immunity in the previous episode. If they had done that, then Eric could have gone into the Gauntlet and possibly been eliminated before the final mission. Since Frank wouldn't agree to the deal, they were able to grant Eric immunity and have a chance to win the final mission, which they did.

I know I said I would stop writing about The Gauntlet a few weeks ago, but last night was just too juicy. Besides, it was the finale. I need to do something with my time before baseball season starts.

Please Don't Kiss Me, I'm Not Irish

Those that know me know that I will typically look for any excuse for a good time. And by “good time,” I mean “go drinking with my friends.”

“Oh really, it’s Guy Fawkes Day? I had no idea! Where are we going to celebrate?”

You only live once (a cliché, but true), and there’s no reason not to look for reasons to have fun with your friends. Or at least that’s how I try and live my life.

There is one day, however, that the rest of the natural-born world uses as an excuse to go out drinking with their friends that I will annually avoid. And that day is today.

I know what you’re thinking, “who doesn’t like St. Patrick’s Day?” Well, I don’t. I’m not exactly sure when this boycott began, because I know I have partaken in St. Patty’s Day revelry in the past. And if you think I’m an Irish-phobe of some sort, you’re wrong on that count as well. I spent a semester of college studying in Dublin, and I have nothing but fine things to say about the good people of The Emerald Isle.

In reality, it’s not the way Irish people respond to St. Patty’s Day that bothers me so much. It’s that fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry decides that they’re “Irish” on March 17, and that means getting wasted to the point of incoherence and acting belligerent because hey, that’s what Irish people do!

Seriously, is there any cultural event that perpetuates more negative stereotypes than St. Patrick’s Day? What’s the line of thinking here, since all Irish people are drunken assholes, let’s ask like drunken assholes in celebration of their fine culture? I’m surprised that folks don’t take this idea to a further extreme and start dressing up like the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms commercials.

Baby Pet Peeves

I was at brunch today with my sister, father, and his girlfriend when I encountered one of my biggest pet peeves. It’s not quite up there with people who say “personal opinion,” but it’s close.

We were discussing the recent preponderance of baby showers that my sister has had to attend, when my dad’s girlfriend asked her about yesterday’s shower specifically.

“Does she know the sex of the baby?”

“Yes, she’s having a girl.”

“Oooh, how nice!”

I don’t mean to pick on my father’s girlfriend because everyone seems to do this, but would she have been disappointed if she found out it was going to be a boy? Every time I hear a person find out the sex of someone else’s baby, they always act really excited, as if that was the answer they were hoping for.

As I see it, there is no reason for anyone to have a vested interest in the gender of someone else’s baby, particularly if they barely know the person, which is the case here. A baby’s gender is pertinent information, but it’s not news that should elicit a reaction that is either positive or negative, it should simply be digested. However, I would be amused if someone reacted to hearing the gender by glumly saying, “oh, that’s too bad.” It’s never happened though.

Now when it comes time for me to be a father (don’t worry Mom, it will happen eventually), I will certainly care. In a perfect world, I’d have a boy and a girl. But if I could only choose one, I’d prefer a boy for the simple fact that I know it will be easier for me to relate to a boy. A less pressing reason is that a boy would also give me a greater chance of having my spawn make millions as a professional athlete.

Anyway, my only theory as to why people always pretend to be excited when they hear the gender of someone else’s baby is that they think that this kind of news deserves an excited response. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t.

This gender thing got me thinking of another pet peeve of mine that also has to do with reproduction. It’s become trendy in recent years to hear couples say, “we’re pregnant.” This drives me absolutely insane.

And when I say this, it’s not because I am trying to win points with feminists by acknowledging that men don’t have any idea what being pregnant is like. It bothers me because it’s just not true. I’ve been told that couples say “we’re pregnant” as a way of demonstrating just how much of a group effort the whole process is going to be, but that’s horseshit. The man can help all he wants, but he’s got the easy part.

If a couple wants to say, “we’re expecting,” that’s fine. But “we’re pregnant” is not.

Time To Say Goodbye

Jerry Seinfeld has a routine where he laments the changing nature of rooting for teams in professional sports. With all the trades and movement via free agency, Seinfeld says it’s gotten to the point where we’re all rooting for laundry, because the clothes stay the same but the players don’t.

It’s not one of his funnier routines, but the point is accurate. The transient nature of professional sports has made it foolish to get too attached to any players on your favorite team. Since I’m typically a realist, this hasn’t been too much of a problem for me. While my allegiance to my favorite teams never wanes, I usually choose my favorite players from around the league. These are players I enjoy watching for one reason or another, and since they’re not on my team, I don’t really care what team they play for.

Sometimes, however, I find myself choosing my favorite player from my favorite team, but rarely have I ever had the disappointment of seeing him leave during the prime of his career. I was dejected to see personal favorites like Charles Oakley (Knicks) and Jessie Armstead (Giants) leave town, but they had already given me years of enjoyment as a fan, so I was able to come to grips with their departure.

It’s not always so easy to see our favorites leave, so you can imagine my dismay when I found out that safety Gibril Wilson, my favorite member of the New York Giants, had signed a free agent contract with the Raiders just four years into his career.

After being drafted by the Giants in the fifth round of the 2004 NFL Draft, Wilson entered the league with little fanfare. And to be honest, I latched onto him mostly because of his amusing name. From Pepper Johnson to Osi Umenyiora, the Giants have never lacked great names, and Gibril was no exception.

Similar to the way I developed a fondness for Armstead, I watched Wilson as he excelled on special teams and in certain pass-defense packages his first couple of years in the league. It turned out he was actually pretty good, and I never hesitated to sing his praises to all my fellow Giants fans.

But then he became a major contributor to the Super Bowl champions, and suddenly he was a hot commodity on the free agent market. And when I found out that the Raiders were hot after him and he was raised in northern California, it seemed like a no-brainer he would end up there. When you factor in that the Raiders were willing to make him the third-highest paid safety in the league, and it was a recipe for his departure.

I can’t blame him for taking the money because word around the campfire is that Giants weren’t going to come close to matching the $39 million contract he received that included $16 million in guaranteed cash. I don't want to say Wilson isn't worth it, but I get the sense the Raiders are attaching a little too much value to the fact that he just won the Super Bowl, as if he has some magic winning dust. If the Giants lost to the Patriots, I have to think the contract he received would have been worth about 30 percent less.

Don’t worry, this is not going to ruin my week, or even my day. It’s just a little disappointing. The lesson, as always, is Seinfeld sees all.

Caught In A Landslide

When I was about 13, my travel soccer from South Riverdale went to Purchase, N.Y. to play F.C. Westchester. As far as we were concerned, they might as well have been A.C. Milan. All I remember about the game was that we lost 8-0, and it could easily have been three times that bad. As my teammate’s father so eloquently put it, “I felt like I was watching the Harlem Globetrotters . . . but my son was on the Washington Generals.”

This season’s “Gauntlet” has a similar feel.

If you’ve been watching, you know what I’m talking about it. The Veterans are the Globetrotters, and the Rookies are the Generals. It’s just getting silly. So silly that I might not be able to write about it anymore.

MTV basically tried to give the Rookies a victory with that stupid burial challenge, and they still couldn’t win. How incompetent do you have to be? The funniest part about it was how the players were freaking out about getting buried two feet deep in the sand. Do you really think MTV is going to let you die on the show? These contestants just get dumber every season.

And after all that, the Rookies still wouldn’t put Nehemiah into the gauntlet against Frank, even though he was clearly the reason they couldn’t win an event that was essentially handed to them on a platter. So instead, they throw in the almighty M.J., and it seemed like everyone thought it was a foregone conclusion he would beat Frank. Is it because M.J. played football at Vanderbilt? Please.

It’s not like Frank is built like McLovin’, and he proved it by defeating M.J.

So now we’re at the point where the Veterans have twice as many players as the Rookies, not to mention a crate load of schwag they’ve won along the way. There seems to be a sentiment among the Vets that having too many players is going to be a detriment in the final mission.

While this strikes me as a needless worry when you consider their domination, it’s also setting up setting up to be the only drama left in this season as the Vets try and figure how they can get some of their female players kicked off.

All in all, it’s been a pretty disappointing season. That doesn’t mean I’ll stop watching though.

No Bourbon For Me

After living outside of New York for most of the past three years, the best part about being back is the ability to reconnect with old friends and family. It's not that I didn't like living in North Carolina because I did, but my social network runs much deeper up in NYC. Considering I grew up here and lived here for two years out of college, it really should come as no surprise.

As a result, I've spent the better part of my first couple of months in New York feverishly trying to catch up with old friends. One of these friends is a buddy from college that moved to Manhattan while I was in North Carolina, which makes it a lot easier to hang out with him.

He's a ton of fun, so I'm usually down to meet up with him, except of course when he wants me to join him for his regular Thursday visit a bar called Bourbon St. on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

He has a good reason for going there, and it's because Bourbon St. serves $1 drafts on Thursdays, and he tries to get me to join his group of regulars almost every week. I just can't do it, and there's a good reason.

When I was in high school, Bourbon St. was known as one of those places known for being rather relaxed when it came to scrutinizing IDs at the door. Therefore, it was also a place that had a younger clientele. When I was a junior in high school, a friend of mine and I decided to finally get up to speed with the rest of the country's teenage population and get fake IDs. With IDs, we reasoned, we'd finally be able to get into cool bars like Bourbon St.

One Saturday afternoon, we made a trek down to the West Village to one of those shady stores where it's kind of hard to tell exactly what they sell, but you know they have fake IDs.

We didn't really know what we were doing, and it showed. Our problems were further complicated by the fact that we didn't want to spend more than $40 or so per man. This meant that we wouldn't be getting replica out-of-state licenses, but rather generic-looking college IDs. We had friends with similar IDs, however, and those seemed to work OK. We figured we'd be OK.

I like to think that we were pretty bright kids, yet we decided to get IDs that were virtually identical, except mine said "St. John's University," and his said "Rutgers University." You'd think we'd have realized that since we planned on using these IDs at the same time, our IDs would look better if they were from the same school. Apparently not.

We were pretty proud of our purchase, and we looked forward to getting to try them out. I was a little bit of a wimp, so I didn't want to risk using them anywhere out of fear of them being confiscated, or worse, us getting arrested. As you can tell, I was a bit paranoid as a teenager. One place I wasn't afraid to try my crappy fake ID was Bourbon St., and sure enough, my friend and I waltzed right in.

What I didn't realize at the time is that bars either take fake IDs, or they don't. This wasn't a situation where my ID was being examined for its authenticity, because it was obviously fake to anyone with a third-grade education. The biggest lesson I learned from that experience is that it behooves any teenager to spend the money on a good ID. You're high school years will be more fun, and you won't have to worry about whether you're good enough for places like Bourbon St.

When I first got back to NYC in December, I begrudgingly joined my friend on Thursday at Bourbon St. because I hadn't seen him in a really, really long time. And while it was great to see him, I couldn't shake the feeling of being anywhere from 5-to-10 years older than the everyone else there. After that, I vowed never to go back there again.

To turn a phrase from Groucho Marx, I don't want to go to any bar that would have a dorky 17-year-old version of myself as a patron.

White People Like Stuff

Being the hip New Yorker that she is, my sister is always in on the cutting edge. So of course it was her that sent me the think to "Stuff White People Like," a hot new blog that is pretty self-explanatory. The blog is quite "smart" as my boss here at ESPN Mag likes to say, and I found myself shaking my head with self-awareness as I read it. Since I'm in my late 20s and live in Park Slope, the blog is basically poking fun at my entire demographic.

In my defense, I will say that I don't like Oscar parties, snowboarding or food Co-ops. I do like Mos Def, however, I've been down with him since he was one half of Black Star, and before he was appearing on Chapelle's Show.

I take pride in being able to laugh at myself, so I got to thinking about other things that white people like that should appear on that blog. Fortunately, my Saturday night gave me plenty of fodder as I was at a birthday party at Automatic Slim's, which is a closet-sized bar in the West Village that spins all sorts of music white people like. Over the course of the evening, I realized there are three songs that stand above the rest in terms of the love-affair white folks have with them, and they are "Livin' On A Prayer," "Don't Stop Believing," and "Sweet Caroline."

To be honest, I can't really decide which of these songs white people love most. My friends used to own a bar up by Columbia University, and they claim that "Livin' On A Prayer" would be played on the jukebox at least twice on any crowded night. Ever since then, I've always considered that the quintessential white person bar song. And to be honest, if I never hear that song again at a bar, I'll be a happy person. I don't choose music at bars, however, and when that song comes on, the white kids start belting out the story of Tommy and Gina like its going out of style, even though it's clearly not. Last night was no exception.

The Bon Jovi "classic" received some competition from Neil Diamond and Journey last night, and I came to realize that those two songs might have surpassed "Livin' On A Prayer" on the white people chart. To see the pleasure white folks derive from screaming out a "ba-ba-baa" after each "Sweet Caroline" is quite remarkable. When the song regained popularity after it's appearance in the film "Beautiful Girls," I was into it. More than a decade later, I'm pretty fucking sick of it.

It's become even more nauseating due to its association with the Boston Red Sox, who play the song in the middle of the eighth inning at every home game. It's a nice little tradition, and I don't begrudge them for it. Even the Mets play it now, and with the exception of Billy Wagner, it's my least favorite thing about the organization right now.

Unfortunately, the Red Sox success has made the song far more prevalent and we're forced to hear it more frequently. On the plus side, it helps prove my theory because I don't think there is a team with a whiter fan base in all of sports than the Boston Red Sox. Have you ever seen a non-white Red Sox fan? Me neither, and Red Sox "nation" is everywhere.

That brings us to "Don't Stop Believing," but I'll stop short of poking fun of that song because I still kind of like. That being said, I only think I can deal with hearing it at bars for another year or so before I want stab Steve Perry with a spoon.

MJ Returns! No, Not That MJ

Have no fear, The Gauntlet Report is back. I know you loyal readers probably suffered withdrawal, but I’m here to bring in strong like MJ with the Rookies on last night’s Gauntlet.

Man, what a moment that was! The Rookies were all bummed because they were losing folks left and right, and here comes our friend from The Real World: Philadelphia to save the day. I would have liked to see them put MJ in slow motion while he was running across the beach with the “Chariots Of Fire” theme playing to really spice up the drama, but it’s not my call.

I have to give credit to our favorite good ol’ boy, because MJ made his presence known pretty quickly. Not only did he look like he was pulling his weight in the challenges, but he even ran his mouth a bit, criticizing Frank for the way in which he was trying to stand up for Jillian.

You have to hand it to Frank and Jillian, by the way. The whole world seems to be against them, they are constantly overcoming obstacles to keep their dorky affair going. It’s really quite romantic. They’re like Tony and Maria from West Side Story . . . if Tony and Maria were boring New Englanders. I’m not even sure Frank and Jillian are boring New Englanders, but they might as well be.

All that really matters is that it looks like nothing is going to stand between Frank and Jillian and the final mission, and one of the casualties of their desire was Zach, who Frank whupped in The Gauntlet. The plus side of this was MTV putting together a music montage of Zach highlights before his send-off. The producers have done these montages before, most memorably when Timmy “retired” after a loss in a recent challenge, and they are always good for a laugh.

Another thing I’ve also noticed in my years of watching these challenges is that they seem to have their own lexicon. When host T.J. Lavin wants to give credit to a player for a strong performance, he always says, “you killed it.” Any player who thinks they are going to be sent into The Gauntlet will refer to themselves as being “on the chopping block.” The other popular one, which was in heavy rotation tonight, was “trim the fat.” This phrase is used in reference to getting the weaker players eliminated for the good of the team. Aren’t the Real World and Road Rules kids masters of metaphor? If I were William Safire, I might dedicate my next “On Language” column to their wordsmenship.

It looks like the Veterans are ready to actually “trim the fat,” as three of their male members were discussing throwing the next mission as a way of making sure some their female members get eliminated. What I find odd is that the male Veterans keep talking about how their women are slowing them down, yet they’ve won six out of seven missions. Umm, fellas, they can’t be that bad.

I’m a little worried about the integrity of the game being compromised if missions get thrown. Senator Arlen Specter has already shown a willingness to investigate the New England Patriots’ “Spygate”, could The Gauntlet be next?

Thoughts On Ping Pong And Mariah

I’m only two weeks into this blog, and I’ve already gone through my first week-long slump. On the surface, this seems problematic for the future of this blog, but I have a really good excuse. Two really good excuses, in fact.

The first excuse is that my roommates and I recently purchased a Ping Pong table. And if you have ever purchased a Ping Pong table before, you know what it’s like. The best thing I can compare it to is the first couple of months with a new girlfriend (or boyfriend), when you simply cannot get enough of that person. You want to see them in the morning, afternoon and night.

Since last Thursday, that has been my roommates and I with our Ping Pong table.

My second excuse is that I was the host of rollicking housewarming party on Saturday. The toughest part about hosting the soiree was that we were forced to put the Ping Pong table away for the night. Once it was nesting cozily in the closet, the party was a great success. Unfortunately, my vicious hangover prevented me from writing anything on Sunday, which had been my plan.

But besides making my head throb like a cartoon heartbeat for the better part of the Lord’s Day, the party helped prove two pet theories of mine. They are as follows, 1) Whether they want to admit it or not, everyone loves Mariah Carey, and 2) About 90 percent of the population thinks they are really good at Ping Pong.

It might be deemed “gay” to admit as much, but I love Mariah Carey. I came to this realization over a number of years, and it hit home when I was in Ireland a few years back and a Mariah compilation came on in a bar. About five songs in, I said to myself, “holy shit, Mariah has a bunch of great songs.”

I was closeted about my Carey crush for a couple of years, but I will now openly admit it. I think it’s because I realized that most people feel the same way about Mariah. And though a lot of us like to turn our noses at pop music, there’s no doubt that there’s something to be said about a great pop song, and the bottom line is that Mariah knows how to make a great freaking pop song.

The power of a great pop song comes through most powerfully at a party. I take a bit of pride in putting together a fun party mix, and I felt very good about the combo I had diced up for Saturday’s festivities. Through the course of the 80-song mix, I threw in three separate songs that featured Ms. Carey, and while I got a good response for the music of the evening, there was not one song that got more props than, “Always Be My Baby.”

Eyes lit up throughout the room as soon Carey piped in with the first “doo-doo-doo, ah”, and at least three people (I was pretty drunk, so keeping track was tough) walked up to me and said something along the lines of, “great song choice! You are the handsomest man at this party.” OK, I might have made the second part of that up.

To further prove the resonance of Mariah, I remember being in a city park in Columbus, Ohio this past October. A group of four teenage boys decked out in urban-wear du jour strolled past me and sat down at a bench with a boom box. While I was still in earshot, I could hear them pumping the aforementioned Mariah track that was such a hit with my friends on Saturday night.

When Mariah wasn’t the topic of conversation, my roommates and I were pimping our new Ping Pong table. We’re pretty proud of it, and we wanted to share that pride with our friends, who invariably all proclaimed to be the second coming of Forrest Gump, who despite being fictional, is the most famous Ping Ponger ever.

Now I’m not saying these people are lying, because it’s not that hard to be a serviceable Ponger. However, there has to be a spectrum of skill, and someone has to be at the bottom. I used to play religiously at summer camp, so I’ve always fancied myself as within the top 20 percent of recreational players. This belief was brought into question in college when my friends and I used to play after dinner, and I came face to face with many players who had grown up with a table in their suburban rec room. I never had such a luxury, so my play was limited to the summer.

What struck me most was that everyone in my group of friends claimed to be an excellent player. And while everyone could play, there was clearly a hierarchy. It was then that I first came up with my theory that everyone claims to be good at the game.

I’d always wanted a Ping Pong table to call my own, and now the dream has been fulfilled. And now that I have a table, I’m sure I can vault myself back into my imaginary top 20 percent. Like I said, everyone (including me) thinks they are great at the game.

Ping Pong and I have always shared a special bond, though I can’t really describe it. I’ll just quote Mariah and say, “we belong together.”

***Sorry I missed last week’s installment of “The Gauntlet Report.” I didn’t get to watch it until Saturday, and it seemed silly to write it up three days later. I’ll have it this week though. I think.

David Tyree Is My Homey

I’ll be honest, I figured that the next time one of my teams won a championship, it would be the Mets.

It turned out to be the Giants, however, and I’m not complaining. Sunday was as much fun as I’ve had watching a sporting event in a long time, and the best part about it was seeing a player I adopted as a personal favorite many years back emerge as a surprise hero.

I know I’m not alone in falling prey to what I call the “I knew him back when” phenomenon. There’s something we seem to enjoy about discovering something or someone before everyone else.

It’s the reason you’ll hear people brag about the time they saw The Shins play at some tiny club in bumfuck Texas before Zach Braff decided to put them on the “Garden State” soundtrack, and it’s why my friends roll their eyes when I tell them about the time I saw Ryan Braun hitting the crap out of the ball at batting practice in Greensboro while playing in low Class A. And it’s why I was thrilled to see David Tyree make what was probably the greatest catch in Super Bowl history.

Hardcore Giants fans will remember a time around the turn of the century when their special teams were absolutely abysmal. It got so bad at one point that coach Jim Fassel started using his starters because the typical mix of back-up defensive backs and wide receivers were not getting it done. Watching the Giants try to cover a kick was like trying to watch Rocky Balboa chasing the chicken to work on his quickness.

Enter David Tyree.

Even though Tyree was a solid wide receiver while playing at Syracuse, he was drafted in the sixth round in 2003 based solely on his special teams skills. Immediately, my friend Dan and I decided that Tyree was going to be a difference maker. And for once, we were right.

With Tyree covering kicks, the Giants had a special teams weapon unseen since the days of Reyna Thompson. He was so good that he even made the Pro Bowl in 2005 as a special teamer, and Dan and I felt vindicated for having jumped on the Tyree bandwagon so early. At one point we even discussed getting Tyree jerseys.

As you can imagine, we were ecstatic to see Tyree not only make the aforementioned catch that seemed suited for Barnum & Bailey, but also add a TD catch. I felt an even greater bond with Tyree because he is from Montclair, N.J., which is where my family owned a Five-and-Dime for generations.

After the Giants stunning victory, Dan and I were joined by our friend Dave (another Giants fan) walking down the streets of Brooklyn and reveling with other Big Blue faithful. More than once I heard some lesser fan exclaim, “who the fuck is that Tyree guy?”

All I could do was smile and think, “man, those Tyree jerseys would look pretty cool right now.”

The Gauntlet Report, Volume I

In our current era of vapid pop culture, the phrase “guilty pleasure” gets thrown around quite frivolously in order to justify wasting our time on crappy television and music. I resist the urge to fall prey to this phenomenon, but when it comes to “The Gauntlet,” as well as any other reincarnation of “The Real World/Road Rules Challenge,” I can’t help myself.

I’ve been watching for years, and I’m hoping to make my “Gauntlet Report” a weekly feature here on ABCQ. Bill Simmons has long advocated replacing the NHL with the challenges as the fourth major sport in this country, so this even fits the sports theme of this blog. Don’t worry, I’ll mix it up sometimes.

We’re two episodes into the newest season, but we got the special bonus of seeing two people eliminated this week. That’s like the time the guy at Dunkin’ Donuts accidentally gave me two crullers when I only asked for one.

First we lost Angel from the Rookies team after she almost miraculously came back to defeat Jillian in the Gauntlet. Angel seemed nice, but I didn’t care because I had no idea where she came from. I used to make a point to at least watch a few episodes of every season of both “The Real World” and “Road Rules”, but I guess I missed one somewhere because I didn’t recognize her.

It might be a sign of maturity that I’m no longer fully aware of every member of “The Real World” or “Road Rules”, but I felt a little out of touch. I had actually tuned into a couple of episodes of “The Real World: Sydney” just so I would be familiar with them in this challenge. Much to my dismay, none of them are on “The Gauntlet.” There is no doubt that Dunbar would have already been in a fight with CT and sucked face with any of the Pamela, Tori, Janelle triumvirate. It’s a shame.

The second person to go down was Tyler, who seemed to be doing his best to reinforce every negative gay stereotype in the world. When he wasn’t overly emotional and catty, he was doing everything he could to get into the pants of Ryan, the only other gay guy in sight. Ryan, doing his best to resist gay stereotypes, shunned Tyler’s advances and seemed very pleased when Tyler hit the bricks.

After three challenges, the veterans seem to be in control with a 3-0 lead. There is definitely more firepower on their side, but you can easily see them falling apart once they lose a challenge or two, and you know it’s going to happen.

And if Vegas were to create prop bets on “Gauntlet”-related events, I feel strongly that “CT getting kicked off for punching someone else on his team,” would be off the board.

Oye Como Va

I was all prepared to mix up the sports theme of this blog with a post about “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” a new reality show on Bravo that I have recently become fascinated with.

But then the Mets went out and acquired the best pitcher in baseball, and I figured that since baseball is kind of my “thing” and I’m a Mets fan, I should probably weigh in.

Before I progress, I want to make it clear that I am aware that this trade could fall through if the Mets can’t reach a contract agreement with Johan Santana in the next 72 hours, but I have a feeling Los Wilpones will open the check book wide for the two-time Cy Young award winner. Therefore, YIPPEE.

After I heard about this trade I recalled my feelings on July 31, 2004, when the Mets made the ill-fated Scott Kazmor-for-Victor Zambrano swap, and I decided that today’s emotions were pretty much the exact opposite of that.

I am normally opposed to four-for-one trades like the one the Mets made to get Santana because I believe strongly in building through the farm system. But I also believe that there’s a time to pay big, and that’s when truly elite talent is available. It’s why the Mike Piazza trade made sense, it’s why the Carlos Beltran signing made sense, and it’s why this Santana trade makes sense.

And having ranked the top 30 prospects in the Mets farm system in the 2005 and 2006 Baseball America Prospect Handbook, I feel qualified to speak about the four prospects the Mets gave up with some degree of authority.

I’m not going to list the merits and faults of Carlos Gomez, Kevin Mulvey, Phil Humber and Deolis Guerra, but I will say that I don’t think the Mets gave up any future stars. Gomez and Guerra have that potential, but they are far from being locks. I’ve always seen Gomez’ ceiling as being comparable to Alex Rios, and Guerra’s lack of a breaking pitch (and the fact that he is barely old enough to go to R-rated movies) makes it hard to truly project him.

As for Mulvey and Humber, their ceiling is probably as a No. 4 starter. I could be wrong about this, but even if three of these guys reach their ceiling (which is unlikely), the Mets will still be getting a few seasons from the best pitcher of this generation in the midst of his prime. I’ll take it.

The only downside to this trade that I see is Rafael Santana having to relinquish the title of best Santana in Mets history. But hey, we all have to make sacrifices sometimes.

Being the dork that I am, I threw “Meet The Mets” on my iPod today as I left the office. And if you saw me walking across 34th Street, you saw me beaming ear to ear as I strutted to the Mets theme song and visualized a day in mid-May where I’ll be at Shea watching Santana on the hill as 50,000 orange-and-blue faithful rise to their feet every time the Venezuelan reaches two strikes on some helpless foe.

And when you think about it like that, it’s hard not to be ecstatic.

Graves Mistake

I realize that launching a new blog with a post about a sport that no one south of St. Catherine Street really cares about could be a mistake. However, I started this blog to give myself a forum for whatever is on my mind (usually sports and random pop culture), and I'm hoping it will be a destination for all of you when you think you've run out of shit to read on the Internet.

Like much of the free world, I haven't cared much about the NHL for years. My interest has waned since the Rangers won the Stanly Cup 14 years ago, and I will readily admit that makes me a fair-weather fan. When it comes to hockey, I’m OK with that.

The bottom line is that I'm pretty out of the NHL loop. For example, I had no clue that the NHL All-Star game was this weekend. I work at sports magazine, and I wouldn't have known unless I stumbled across the skills competition Saturday night on "Versus." Once I realized I didn't know any of the players, I kept on the flipping.

That being said, I still have a soft spot for the Rangers. And now that I am back in New York after a three-year hiatus and armed with a 42-inch HD TV, I figured I would give hockey another shot. And what better way to re-connect with the Rangers glory years (year?) than watching Brian Leetch's number-retirement ceremony, which was on this past week.

Much like the Mark Messier ceremony from a few years back, it was way too long and self-aggrandizing. What should have taken no more than 25 minutes took 51. Leetch was a great player and a fine man, but we don't need to hear about it from every member of the 1994 Rangers.

That wasn't what really annoyed me though, because that is what these ceremonies have become. What stuck in my craw was the announcement that the Rangers would be retiring Adam Graves' No. 9 next year.

At the risk of sounding like an old-fashioned curmudgeon, what happened to the time when having your number retired meant something? Don't get me wrong, I loved the grind-out-style of Gravesy, but he finished his career with 329 goals. For some perspective, former teammate Steve Larmer finished his career with 441 goals, and you don't see No. 28 hanging anywhere except in Mama Larmer's closet.

On a side note, hockey players have a silly system for creating nicknames. My understanding is that if your name ends with a "y," it's gets shortened by a syllable. For example, Wayne Gretzky was "Gretz." On the flip side, every player whose name doesn't end with a "y" gets a "y" added on to create their new name. This means Brian Leetch is "Leetchy" and Adam Graves is "Gravesy." Stupidy.

Back to Graves and his sham of a number retirement. I've always liked the fact that my favorite teams are very selective when it comes to retiring numbers. The Mets have four retired, and the Rangers had just two (Eddie Giacomin and Rod Gilbert) until Messier and Mike Richter received the honor in the past couple of years.

Adam Graves just isn’t on that level.

I’m usually inclined to prove statements like that with some sort of statistical argument, but in this case I don’t feel as though it’s necessary. Graves was an excellent, but not great, player. And even though the fans loved him and he was active in the community, I can’t shake the feeling that seeing Graves’ number retired diminishes the honor.

The best argument in his favor is that he set the Rangers’ single-season record for goals in their Stanley Cup year, but that seems pretty flimsy.

Todd Hundley holds the Mets single-season home run record, and I’m pretty sure No. 9 is in no danger of being plastered on the walls of the Mets new stadium.