Baseball Writers STILL Don't Get It

Steve Henson of Yahoo Sports is the latest baseball scribe to write an article about criminally overpaid San Francisco Giants pitcher Barry Zito based on the false premise that Zito was ever an elite Major League pitcher. In his article, Mr. Henson claims that Zito, whose spot in the team's postseason rotation has been taken by a 21-year-old rookie being paid $250,000, was signed to his ludicrous $126 million contract "based on his mostly seven stellar seasons with the Oakland Athletics." Furthermore, Henson falsely asserts, Zito stopped pitching well "upon collecting paychecks from the Giants."

Both of those claims are patently untrue, as I pointed out in painstaking detail back in this 2008 blog entry during spring training:

http://argyleghost.blogspot.com/2008/03/barry-zito-poster-child-for-medias-need.html

Mr. Henson's Yahoo article all-too-predictably comes with the obligatory picture of the still young, handsome and white Mr. Zito. After all, as I pointed out over two years ago, those were the real qualities for which the Giants organization paid so dearly before the start of the 2007 season.

Sadly, baseball writers - even with all evidence to the contrary at their disposal - still mistake "young, handsome and white" for "outstanding and consistent," which begs the question: if they don't understand this fallacy now, will they ever understand it?

Showboat Virus

Look at the two pictures below:

What the hell is going on in college football?!? Does anybody coach these stupid kids any more? Seriously. If I were the head coach of either one of these knuckleheads I would make them run stadium steps for two straight hours, followed by an afternoon of washing every teammate's jock strap by hand, and then capped off with a night of writing "I will not celebrate a touchdown as long as I attend this university" 1,000 times on the chalkboard in my office.


That's how offensive these mistakes are to me, and I hope they are almost as offensive to each of these players' coaches. There is simply no excuse whatsoever to be so focused on celebrating your touchdown that you forget to finish it.


For the record, both of these morons got very lucky: in both cases the referees were actually worse than the players and didn't even notice the infractions, both of which should have resulted in touchbacks for the opposing teams.

Murray Rizberg’s Super Bowl Prediction (whatever that’s worth . . .)

Personally, I think predicting most Super Bowls is an utter waste of time, which makes me the most qualified guy on the planet to be writing this, of course. Now, I say that predicting the Super Bowl is waste of time because it usually pits two teams that are, at least on paper, fairly evenly matched. Sure there are exceptions: did anybody really believe that the wildcard Patriots had any chance of defeating the Super Bowl-shuffling Bears in 1986 or the extraordinarily average 2000 Giants could score enough (or any) points to defeat the Baltimore Ravens and its ridiculously dominant defense? God I hope not. Despite a history full of blowouts, the Super Bowl usually has fielded two teams that appear quite competitive based on the regular season. Sure, most people expected the San Francisco 49ers to defeat the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV, but I can assure almost nobody saw the 49ers putting up 55 points on a Denver team that had allowed a meager 14 points per game during the regular season; similarly, anybody who says he predicted Doug Williams would throw four touchdowns in one quarter and that Timmy Smith would run for 204 yards against those same Broncos a year earlier is, simply put, full of poo-poo.

Thus we arrive at the enormously pointless task of predicting this year’s Super Bowl featuring the AFC Champion Indianapolis Colts and the NFC Champion New Orleans Saints. As usual, these teams appear evenly matched on paper: The Saints ranked first in points scored (32.8 ppg, twelfth-most in NFL history) while the Colts finished less than a touchdown behind in seventh (26 ppg); on the other side of the ball the Colts ranked eighth in points allowed (19.2 ppg) while the Saints allowed only two points more per game at twentieth (21.3 ppg). Based on those numbers alone, one would give the Saints an edge since they outscored their opponents by an average of 11.5 points per game to the Colts’ 6.8-point difference. The only problem with basing anything on that statistic should be obvious: the Colts more-or-less tanked their last two games and were outscored by an average of 18.6 ppg (the Saints rested their starters in the last week of the season and were outscored by thirteen points; the difference, however, is that the Saints were not favored to beat the red-hot Carolina Panthers anyway).

A closer look at each team’s offense offers no good basis for predicting the game’s outcome, either. While both teams have elite passing attacks, the Saints clearly have the more complete and more versatile offense: the Saints ranked fourth in passing offense and sixth in rushing offense while the Colts ranked second in passing offense and dead last in rushing offense. Under most normal circumstances I would put plenty of stock in this difference, but the Colts are a strange case. For instance, the Colts ranked dead last in regular season rushing defense three years ago – and then proceeded to shut down every opponent’s rushing attack (including holding NFL rushing leader Larry Johnson to a paltry thirty-two yards on thirteen carries) en route to winning the Super Bowl. In the AFC Championship game, the Colts’ supposedly anemic running game found a way to out-run the Jets’ NFL-best running game, 101-86. Most people are asking this question as a result of that Championship game: how did the Colts run for twenty yards more than their regular season average – against the NFL’s eighth-ranked rushing defense no less? I, on the other hand, think a better question is this: how did a team with as much talent as the Colts not rush for over a hundred yards more often during the regular season? The offensive line, while not spectacular, is definitely above average, and Joseph Addai, when healthy (his fragility is well-documented), is a tenacious and shifty runner. On paper, there’s no legitimate reason this team ever should have finished dead last in rushing in 2009 (and second-to-last in 2008, for that matter). A part of me suspects that Peyton Manning – much like Sean Payton did in 2008 – gave up on the running game too quickly; then again, if you’re as efficient as Peyton Manning, why wouldn’t you call a ton of audibles and take matters into your own hands? Whatever the Colts and/or Peyton Manning decide to call in the Super Bowl, it seems reasonable to expect Joseph Addai will play a much larger and much more successful role than he did in the regular season, especially against a Saints defense that is vulnerable to the run.

The Saints’ rushing attack, meanwhile, averaged fifty more yards per game than the Colts’ did in the regular season. With the Colts’ defense putting the clamps down on its previous two opponents – both of whom ranked higher than the Saints in rushing – it is reasonable to expect the Saints not to run wild over the Colts. What does all this rushing analysis amount to? My guess is that each team is going to finish with between 100-130 rushing yards, meaning neither team has a clear advantage in this predictor, either.

Just as a comparison of the offenses revealed no real clues to help predict the outcome of this game, a similar examination of each team’s defense offers no clues as well. By official NFL rankings – which are based on yardage allowed rather than points allowed – the Colts and Saints ranked 18th and 25th, respectively. Seven spots in a league as competitive as the NFL means virtually nothing, so a closer look is required. The accepted wisdom by experts (both legitimate and alleged) and fans alike is that Indianapolis clearly has the superior defense; a closer examination, however, reveals that such wisdom might not be so wise. For example, it is commonly accepted that the Colts have a decided edge in its ability to put pressure on the opposing team’s quarterback because of bookends Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney. The numbers, however, tell a different story: the Colts had one less sack than the Saints did during the regular season (35-34). Mathis and Freeney accounted for 23 of the Colts’ 34 sacks; the Saints’ sacks are spread out much more evenly: after Will Smith’s team-leading 13.5 sacks – which just happens to be the same amount the celebrated Freeney had – the next highest number of sacks recorded by an individual Saints player is 5.5, recorded by Charles Grant, who will not be playing in the game. Why is this comparison important? For one, the Colts’ pass defense is somewhat dependant upon the ends’ abilities to put pressure on the quarterback; clearly, if an offensive line can stop Mathis and Freeney, it can give its quarterback plenty of time to dissect the Colts’ secondary – and we all know what Drew Brees and the Saints receiving corps can do when it has plenty of time, even when there are plenty of defenders in the secondary. If Mathis and Freeney – who is battling a severe ankle injury and may not have the same burst that makes him such a headache for opposing tackles – cannot put pressure on Brees (the way DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer of Dallas did, for instance), then the Colts might have to bring more pressure from the linebackers and secondary, which in turn would give Sean Payton and Drew Brees a better chance of finding a mismatch with one (or more) of its talented receiving options.

Defensively, most of the talk leading up to the game has been the same: the Colts are underrated and the Saints are rated fairly accurately. All available evidence, however, says that the Saints’ defense is underrated as well – and, as such, is actually more underrated than the Colts’ defense. (In fact, maybe I’m crazy, but when something is considered underrated by more than half of the population, doesn’t that logically make it overrated? But I digress.) Before the Saints’ defense lost three of its starters – including both cornerbacks (Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter) – it was ranked in the top fifteen NFL defenses; only during this injury-riddled phase did the unit sink to the mid-twenties, where it ended the season. Clearly Greer and Porter are two of the most important pieces in defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' super-agressive style of play-calling, and now both players are healthy and starting in the Super Bowl. Nonetheless, even before those injuries, this defense gave up plenty of yardage, much more than most teams that make it all the way to the Super Bowl. For once, conventional wisdom is correct: this defensive unit has relied heavily upon creating turnovers, which is something no defense can rely upon when trying to prevent Peyton Manning from putting up points. As good as Greer and Porter have been all season long – the only touchdown given up by the duo came on a pass interference by Atlanta’s Roddy White that an official standing five feet away somehow missed – the Saints linebackers are the ones who will face the most pressure to stop a Colts offense that does not rely solely on its first and second receivers to drive down field. Frankly, I’m not sure the Saints’ outside linebackers can stop the Colts' most deadly weapon, which happens to be tight end Dallas Clark. The bottom line – again – is that each of these defenses has glaring weaknesses that should be exploited by their opposing offenses.

In the other two important aspects, New Orleans has a slight edge in its special teams while neither team’s coaching staff seems vastly superior to the other. While special teams play can make a huge difference in any game, the odds dictate that it simply won’t – unless a late field goal is needed to win it, in which case both teams are in capable hands – so the Saints’ edge in this category does not give them much separation. The coaching staffs are both top-notch and will be very well-prepared for this game, so neither team gets and advantage here, either.

So where does this leave my prediction? Well, I just happen to have a Florida state quarter in my pocket that I will now flip nine times, with each heads landing representing a Colts touchdown and each tails landing representing a Saints touchdown. Seriously, isn’t this just as logical a predictor as anything else?

Final score: Saints 38 (five tails + one field goal), Colts 31 (four heads + one field goal).

OK, for the LAST time -

USC did not freakin' win the National Championship in 2004 as the caption on that picture indicates; LSU won it. The official national champion is the winner of the BCS Championship Game - as agreed upon by many influential groups of people including college football coaches such as Pete Carroll - and in 2004 the winner of that game was LSU, which defeated Oklahoma 21-14. Furthermore, USC won its only true national title in 2005, not 2003, as that caption indicates. Has the recession completely obliterated the need for fact-checkers and editors?

Anyway, the mainstream media's adoring obsession with Pete Carroll and his USC regime are typical of its biggest flaw: instead of performing its true task of passing on information, it instead creates a storyline (Pete Carroll's genius) and fits facts (USC's 2005 national championship) and non-facts (USC's 2004 "national championship," which should technically be listed as "USC's first-place finish in the 2004 AP poll" - and nothing more) to support that storyline.

So, mainstream media, for the last time, here are the facts: USC won only one official national championship in Pete Carroll's nine years there (2005); in 2004 it was awarded the top spot in the Associated Press writers' poll, but finished the season as the runner-up to LSU in the official national championship system. Therefore it is technically incorrect to state that Pete Carroll won two national championships during his time at USC. Is that really so difficult to grasp?

Oh, and here's one more fact: I am most certainly not an LSU fan; I am, however, a devoted fan of accuracy.

Dear Mr. Shaughnessy: In what universe is Jack Morris a better pitcher than Curt Schilling?

While I agree with almost everything you wrote in the Edgar Martinez column [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/dan_shaughnessy/01/04/edgar.martinez/index.html], I simply cannot accept your blasé assessment that Jack Morris was better than Curt Schilling. Why? Because it is patently untrue to the point that I am forced to ask: do you know even the slightest bit about these two pitchers' careers?!?

Jack Morris pitched in a much more pitcher-friendly era than did Curt Schilling, whose prime coincided with the "Steroid Era" (which also partially overlaps the "Let's-Build-Little-League-Ballparks-And-Play-Major-League-Games-In- Them Era"). Furthermore, Jack Morris remained almost injury-free his entire career; Curt Schilling, on the other hand, lost a significant amount of games to injury in three seasons (and three more if you count the seasons he made only twenty-four starts). On top of those two advantages, Jack Morris pitched for teams that were more competitive than the teams for which Curt Schilling pitched. So, with all those advantages, how does Jack Morris compare to Curt Schilling? Well, he does have thirty-eight more wins than Schilling; but, then again, he started ninety-one more games than Schilling did – on more competitive teams in a more pitcher-friendly era, remember? OK, but wins aren't everything; let's look at other statistics. ERA: Morris is at 3.90, Schilling 3.46. So not only did Schilling allow fewer earned runs per nine innings in his career, he did it in an era of juiced up players and slimmed down ballparks. Strikeouts? Morris had 638 fewer strikeouts in 563 more innings. OK, but how many guys did Schilling put on base compared to Morris? Hmm . . . let' see: Morris walked 1,390 to Schilling's 711. It stands to reason, then, that Morris's career WHIP – 1.30 – does not measure up to Schilling's career WHIP of 1.14.

OK, the regular season is one thing, but what about the postseason? Well, Morris did have that unbelievable Game 7 in the 1991 World Series; but Schilling's two starts with the injured ankle in the 2004 postseason are at least equal to Morris's 1991 Game 7 start in terms of stature (you gotta give it to Schilling there: the man risked his career to win a couple of games for the Red Sox). Morris's 1984 postseason with the Tigers was remarkable as well, winning all three starts while posting a 1.80 ERA. Schilling's 2001 postseason, however, tops Morris's outstanding effort in 1984: six starts, four wins (with no losses) and a ridiculous 1.13 ERA. Throw in Schilling's 1993 performance for the Phillies – four starts (1-1 record) with a 2.61 ERA – versus Jack Morris's 1992 performance for the Blue Jays – four starts (0-3 record) with a 7.43 ERA – and Schilling was clearly the more dominant postseason pitcher as well.

So, after all of that evidence, Mr. Shaughnessy, I must ask again: do you know even the slightest bit about these two pitchers' careers? I suspect one of two things here: 1) You actually didn't know anything about their careers until just now (which seems unlikely since you’ve been writing about baseball since I was in diapers) or, more likely 2) You did know about these two pitchers' careers, but instead allowed your obvious dislike for Schilling to get in the way of your judgment (a dislike, mind you, that I share but don't let interfere with my judgment)? More importantly, after all of the evidence presented here, do you still believe Jack Morris was a better pitcher than Curt Schilling?

Please. There's a very good reason Jack Morris never finished higher than third in the Cy Young balloting: he was a very good – and occasionally dominant – pitcher who won plenty of games for consistently competitive teams while Curt Schilling, for all his bombast and self-glorification, was unquestionably the better, more consistently dominant pitcher who, for the most of his career, just happened to have pitched for less competitive teams.

Any thoughts, Mr. Shaughnessy?

Sincerely,

Murray Rizberg

The Saints are 4-0 . . . but so what?

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Drew Brees did not have a “bad game.” Not throwing for 300 yards and multiple touchdowns does not constitute having a bad game. What Brees did, in fact, was better than throwing for 300 yards and multiple touchdowns: he kept the ball out of the hands of the Jets’ defense – and that is what good quarterbacks do when facing a very good defense: they simply take what the defense allows and give them nothing in return. Brees finished the game 20-32 – a 62.5 completion percentage – with zero touchdowns and, more importantly, zero interceptions against an extremely talented and well-coached defense. How is this a bad game?

I believe it is safe to assume that the only way Brees could have finished this game with the kind of outlandish numbers he put up almost every game last year and the first two games this year was by playing catch-up all game long – and I don’t think the Jets’ offense is good enough to have taken such a big lead by itself. In other words, the only way Brees would have put up big numbers was in an effort to make up for mistakes early in the game. Instead, Sean Payton appeared to realize that the Jets had won their first three games by converting turnovers into points and thus devised a conservative game plan in order to minimize the risk of turning the ball over to the Jets – a plan Brees carried out quite successfully. So Brees and Co. played it safely and did not turn the ball over, which in turn allowed the Saints defense to play aggressively and make the big plays it did in order to help win the game. That doesn’t sound like bad football to me; it sounds like smart, effective and winning football.

So, with Drew Brees playing a larger-than-acknowledged role in this latest victory, the Saints are now 4-0. This perfect start leaves me with one question: so what? The Saints could win seven of their next twelve games and still miss the playoffs. Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL, except for the fact that bad officiating will have an unfortunately big impact on at least one important game every season. Winning seven of twelve is difficult enough, but for the Saints to be all-but-assured of a playoff spot it must win eight of its next twelve games. Does that seem like a sure thing to anybody? Didn’t think so.

Yeah, the 4-0 start is great and everything, but it means nothing other than that the Saints are allowed one or perhaps two more mistakes than the teams that are not 4-0. This is not to say that Saints fans shouldn't feel optimistic, mind you. In fact, there are plenty of reasons for Saints fans to be optimistic at this point, the most important of which are three facets of the game in which the Saints have shown noticeable improvement this season.

First, Sean Payton’s play-calling is restrained and once again creative. With the exception of his decision to go for it on 4th-and-goal instead of kicking the field goal (always take the points when playing an excellent defense, coach!), Payton appears to have found some much-needed self-control. I didn’t see any reverses on third-and-short, nor did I see any halfback options or reckless downfield passes into triple coverage. The game plan appeared simple: be patient and take what the Jets give since they’re probably not going to give up anything big. Along with this new-found ability to adjust, Payton seems to have found the creativity he displayed his first season with the Saints as well. By that statement I probably mean that he’s actually calling run plays again, of course. Despite its obvious ability to score big, the Saints’ offense sorely lacked a consistent running game the last two seasons, and much of its inconsistency appeared simply to be a lack of confidence on the part of Payton to put the ball in the hands of his perfectly capable running backs. This year Payton seems to have realized that just because you can score seemingly at will via the pass does not mean you must score at will via the pass. Running the ball effectively takes more time off the clock and keeps your defense well-rested – this fact was overlooked in explaining all the woes experienced by the New Orleans defense the past two seasons (not that it excuses most of those embarrassingly blatant blown coverage disasters in the secondary) – and ultimately gives your team a better chance to win much of the time even if the team is not scoring as many points.

The defense is greatly improved – and not just because of the arrival of Gregg Williams, though he has much to do with it. The personnel is simply better: Darren Sharper has filled the slot of the monumentally incompetent duo of Kevin Kaesviharn and Josh Bullocks; Tracy Porter is back from his broken wrist and taken over for the horribly overmatched Jason David ; Jabari Greer and Randall Gay are the third and fourth cornerbacks rather than Jason Craft and Aaron Glenn; and Will Smith and Charles Grant, though both remain overpaid for their respective contributions, are healthy again and playing at a higher level than last year. Throw in Gregg Williams’ more diverse and more aggressive defensive schemes, and this unit now looks almost completely different from the past two seasons’ defenses. Sure, it’s still early in the season, but it is safe to assume that this New Orleans Saints defense will not allow as many third-down conversions or easy scores as the last two Saints defenses did.

The third improvement might be slightly overlooked, but it is definitely important: the special teams have improved just enough to make things easier on the defense. Gone is the instability at kicker – John Carney has been reliable on field goals, and Thomas Morstead is getting longer, more consistent hang time on his punts and more touchbacks on his kickoffs, thus allowing fewer opportunities for big returns by the opponent. Sure, our return men are still shaky – I cringe every time Reggie Bush runs side-to-side with the ball over-exposed for easy pickings – but they're not horrible by any means, either. The improvement on kickoffs and punts, however, is especially important since the Saints’ return coverage has been generous and inconsistent over the entirety of Payton’s tenure as head coach; the addition of Carney and Morstead appear to have solved the kicking problem and given the defense just enough more room for error to be even more aggressive.

The 4-0 start is excellent, but perspective must be kept: a perfect quarter season means very little in this league. A few injuries here and a suspension there – coupled with some bad luck and unfavorable officiating (which seems to destroy at least one half of one game every season) – and this 4-0 start easily could turn into a 9-7 season in a league as competitive as the NFL. Nonetheless, the Saints appear to have improved significantly in enough facets of the game to give the team’s long-suffering fans a legitimate reason to feel optimistic about the last twelve games of the season – and hopefully beyond.

Murray Rizberg's Completely Worthless 2009 NFL Forecast

I like the fact that football starts late in the year. It just makes sense to me. Baseball, the more methodical and pastoral of the “big two” sports, appropriately starts in the spring, when optimism is still in bloom. By the time fall has rolled around – and half of my expensive electronic gadgets have self-destructed well before their expected lifespan and all of my New Year’s resolutions have gone up in flames – I am more than ready for a little controlled violence. I need to see people bashing each other’s brains in. Badly. And football season arrives at just the right time. That time is now.


The AFC North should be a two-horse race between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. In fact, the only things separating these two teams with superb defenses and mediocre offenses are their uniforms - and the Steelers have the clear advantage here (their blank-on-one-side helmet is probably the coolest gimmick in all of sports, followed closely by the blank-on-both-sides helmet of their division rival Cleveland Browns). Under current league rules, the Bengals are prohibited from making any post-season appearances until they get rid of those ridiculously garish striped uniforms. Start your petition now, Cincinnati fans.

Perhaps the most difficult division to forecast this season is the AFC South, a division in which all four teams – Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville and Tennessee – have a legitimate shot to come out on top. After performing a series of four-way, best-of-three coin flips, I have determined that it is Houston’s year to win it. A division title for Houston would be fantastic news for those who really want to see the team with the most narcissistically un-original nickname in sports – the Texans – revive a slightly revised version of the most wretched sports fight song ever! Or am I the only person kept awake at night by recurring nightmares of the “Houston Oilers Number One!” fight song? Perhaps those should have been best-of-five coin flips now that I think about it. Oh, and while I'm thinking about this: why should I be the only person plagued by the "Houston Oilers Number One!" fight song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvWn_yGaA-Y

The New England Patriots appear ready to make the AFC East much less competitive this season. Now that he is married, Tom Brady will be more motivated than ever to extend his time away from home. That motivation – coupled with the fact that Brady is the greatest quarterback on the planet – should be reason enough to believe the Patriots will take their rightful spot atop the division. The rest of this division consists of a bunch of also-rans with no real starting quarterbacks and no real reason to bother trying to compete with New England. Or do people suddenly believe the NFL’s quarterback efficiency rating has actual merit?

Only because we were obligated, we come to the AFC West, the division with the largest number of teams that can’t even compete for the PAC-10 title. The Kansas City Chiefs fired their offensive coordinator just a few weeks before the start of the season, indicating only that they wanted to try an entirely different approach to losing at least ten games. The Denver Broncos, meanwhile, suspended T.O. wanna-be Brendan Marshall in an attempt to eradicate what little talent the offense had left. And the Oakland Raiders, well – come on, the name alone acts as its own punch line at this point, doesn’t it? This leaves the San Diego Chargers as the only team who should even bother suiting up on Sunday this season – and even they’re one Tila Tequila night out from having a viable defense.

The NFC North might not be the most competitive division in the NFL, but I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if ain’t the most entertaining. Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress spent the entire off-season engaged in an endless, pathetic attempt to lure Brett Favre out of his sixtieth retirement. Now that Childress' love has been requited, the Vikings are hoping to be rewarded with a division or perhaps even a Super Bowl title. Sorry, Minnesota; you essentially sold your soul to the devil for a geriatric, arthritic and deaf Paganini in cleats. Chicago Bears fans – possibly the most classless (their treatment of Saints fans in 2007 will never be forgotten) and clueless of all NFL fans (these people actually still worship Mike Ditka!) – believe Jay Cutler is their ticket to the Super Bowl; meanwhile, on planet earth, almost everybody else thinks Jay Cutler is nothing more than the Bears’ ticket to an 8-8 record. Detroit is the only team in the NFL coming off a perfect season. Sure, it was perfectly shitty, but perfect nonetheless. Rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford might lead this team out of its perfect incompetence, but he most assuredly will not lead it to the playoffs. This leaves the Green Bay Packers – with its improved defense and high-powered offense led by some dude not named Brett Favre – as the division winners.

NFC South winners do not repeat – it’s in the NFL by-laws, apparently. This by-law, along with Carolina’s crappy defense and crappy quarterback, eliminates any chance the Panthers had at winning the division. And since enough Atlanta Falcons fans actually believe their team won its division last year, the Falcons have no chance, either. Thus the division comes down to two teams: the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Actually, the division thus comes down to two quarterbacks: Drew Brees and Byron Leftwich. The weight loss is admirable, Mr. Leftwich, but Drew Brees almost broke one of the most hallowed records in all of sports last year. New Orleans takes it.

In the NFC East, the Dallas Cowboys – relying more on their underrated running game – will return to the playoffs as a wildcard team. Jerry Jones has decreed that no other team in this division is worthy of even a mention, so we must move on now.

Last season the Arizona Cardinals surprised everyone in the universe by coming out of the lowly NFC West and nearly defeating Pittsburgh for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Of course, it’s important to remember that the Cardinals reached the Super Bowl as the beneficiaries of possibly the worst playoff performance by a quarterback in the history of football. Too bad Arizona can’t play Carolina every week in 2009; otherwise they would make the playoffs. Many people like Seattle’s chances of returning to the playoffs this year, but I like their weather up there better. San Francisco will be the team to beat this year in the NFC West; if it isn’t, 49ers players will learn just how serious new head coach Mike Singletary was when he vowed to snap the necks of each and every player on the team. Something tells me those guys are sufficiently motivated. I think there’s another team in this division, but damn if I can remember who the heck it is!


Thus we arrive at the post-season. Here are some betting tips to avoid:

AFC Wildcard: Indianapolis def. Houston; San Diego def. Baltimore
NFC Wildcard: Dallas def. San Francisco; Green Bay def. Minnesota

AFC Divisional Playoffs: Indianapolis def. New England; San Diego def. Pittsburgh
NFC Divisional Playoffs: Dallas def. NY Giants; New Orleans def. Green Bay

AFC Championship: San Diego def. Indianapolis
NFC Championship: Dallas def. New Orleans

Super Bowl MCMLXXXIX: San Diego 31, Dallas 21


MVP: Drew Brees, QB, New Orleans
Offensive Player of the Year: Maurice Jones-Drew, RB, Jacksonville
Defensive Player of the Year: Mario Williams, DE, Houston
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Knowshon Moreno, HB, Denver
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Aaron Curry, OLB, Seattle
Coach of the Year: Mike McCarthy, Green Bay

Mascot of the Year: Boltman (San Diego) – have you seen this fucking thing?!!?

An Open Letter to the Democratic Majority (revised version)

Dear Democratic Majority,

Quit being the humongous fuckin' pussies we all know you to be, forget this perverted fantasy of "bi-partisanship," and just pass some meaningful goddamned healthcare legislation right fucking now - you know, like your asshole counterparts did with the Bush tax cuts back in 2001. That's how politics works, you fucking dipshits. You won the last two election cycles by wide margins and control a large majority in Congress and can do virtually whatever the fuck you want to do - so why are you acting like a bunch of fucking pussies who want to put on a bake sale with your opponents in the Republican Party. You have power, morons - fucking act like it. Fuckin' losers.

Sincerely,

Murray Rizberg

Cosmetic Rehabilitation

It seems the Republican Party finally has realized that – after suffering back-to-back electoral annihilations at the hands of the Democrats in 2006 and 2008 – it really needs to change in order to appeal to a greater number of voters in the future. While being pounded as thoroughly as the GOP was in those two elections is never a fun experience for any political party, Republicans should very easily be able to see at least one bright silver lining: such electoral losses usually indicate that there are plenty of aspects in a party’s operations that can be changed in order to win voters back. For instance, party leaders could acknowledge that their Faustian deal with the religious right was a terrible mistake and then return to truer Goldwater-style conservative social policies that openly embrace gay marriage and a woman’s (legal) right to choose. Another option the GOP has is to grow up in its foreign policy thought process and stop wanting to use the military to obliterate any country whose policies do not agree with the Republican Party’s. Or, the whole lot of them could simply stop trying to peddle the absurd myth that “trickle-down” economics ever trickles anywhere past the richest two percent’s ten-car driveways. And those are just three of the options this beleaguered political party has at its disposal in order to regain the one thing it actually cares about: political power!

So what option has the Republican Party embraced as its first step to winning back the general public? Would you believe they’re going to Glamour Shots for a makeover? Duh! Should we have expected anything else from the party of “Mission Accomplished”? Obviously not. It seems that the Republican Party is starting an initiative called the National Council for a New America – which sounds suspiciously like the inbred child of the Project for a New American Century and the National Review – in order to connect to voters around the country in a series of “town hall” style meetings open to the entire public. The thing is, though, that this “council” consists of a bunch of rich white guys – and Bobby (Ray) Jindal, of course.

Huh? Did I miss something? The Republican Party is going to try to win voters of all backgrounds by essentially starting a traveling think tank? And not just any traveling think tank, but a traveling think tank consisting of a bunch of conservative retreads? Please, somebody look at this roster and explain to me how these guys are going to be able to bring new voters who don’t already carry assault rifles and watch Faux News into their stagnant political party:


• Bitter, vanquished 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain
• Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, brother of possibly the worst president ever
• House Minority Leader John “only by cutting the capital gains tax can we stop the AIDS epidemic in Africa” Boehner
• Mississippi governor and former über-lobbyist Haley Barbour
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch “blame the auto workers union” McConnell
• GOP House Whip – and the man behind the plot to humiliate freshmen Democratic senators on youtube – Eric Cantor
• Former Massachusetts governor Mitt “Who Let the Dawgs Out” Romney
• Token non-white and experienced exorcist Bobby (Ray) Jindal


Granted, I’m still adjusting to these bifocals, but I just can’t see how new voters will be attracted to a group of such established conservative giants, unless these longtime giants do a political (and ethical) about-face this very instant. Considering the fact these people by definition do not change easily or quickly, I don’t see this about-face occurring anytime soon, either.

So where does this inability to undergo quick change leave the GOP and its traveling think tank town hall meetings? The obvious first guess would be that these meetings will attract almost exclusively those people who participated in the teabag demonstrations in April: angry, disenchanted voters who carry the pathological misperception that they are disenfranchised as well. [After all, most of these people are white (still the majority after all these years!), middle class (whose taxes are being lowered despite what they are foolishly led to believe by their conservative masters at Faux News), gun-owning (is there a weapons ban up for vote I’m not aware of?), Christian (still waiting for that constitutional ban on Christianity) fools (see previous four adjectives) who are just now becoming angry about government spending – after never uttering a single objection while their glorious leader Dubyah and his buddies in congress spent the public’s money like a bunch of drunken frat boys on a six-year spring break in Tijuana. I’m sorry, but these people have zero credibility or common sense.] Even if a few treasonous, America-hating liberals do decide to go to one of these town hall meetings and ask honest questions of these conservative leaders, they are very likely to be shouted down and/or run out of the meeting altogether by the innate hostility of the fundamentally ignorant people who are very likely to be in a great majority at such an event. In other words, the “wide open policy debate” allegedly desired in this council’s letter is very likely never to occur, and these town hall meetings will amount to nothing more than a bunch of broken record conservatives preaching to the angriest choir in America. Yeah, I’m sure this traveling think tank side show is going to build that (new) permanent Republican majority in the blink of an eye.

It should be obvious to anyone with even the slightest ability to look at matters objectively that the modern Republican Party just doesn’t get it. At a time when Republicans absolutely need to look inward, they are still looking outward. Rather than choosing to go to political rehab to restore their dignity, direction and integrity (assuming they ever had any), Republicans appear to be – as always – choosing merely to repair their cosmetic problems in an attempt to make themselves more presentable to the voters – all the while failing to understand that their interior flaws are what’s causing the electorate to see exterior ugliness. Republicans can – indeed, they must – start by coming back to planet earth – you know, the place where the Employee Free Choice Act does protect union members’ right to anonymous voting, where Matthew Shepard’s murder was a hate crime rather than a mere fatal robbery, where humankind is causing grave danger to the environment, and where people who break the law are held accountable for their actions – and not just when a Democrat lies about oral sex. Simply put, Republicans have to grow up, stop habitually lying to themselves and the general public, accept reality and live within its confines, and then – maybe then – be able to offer themselves as a legitimate alternative to the Democrats and thus regain their relevance.

I realize that’s a terrifying prospect to most Republicans out there (especially that whole introspection thing – ew!), but they should think about it this way: if they do offer a legitimate alternative to the Democratic Party, it will be just a small matter of time before those almost equally clueless Democrats screw up so badly that voters will flock to the Republicans the same way they did to Democrats in 2006 and 2008.

Based on this ridiculous National Council for a New America, however, I’m not holding my breath for a Republican takeover anytime soon.


http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/29/gop-set-to-launch-rebranding-effort/

The Political Reality of Prosecuting Bush Administration Torturers

I know bi-partisanship is important to Barack Obama – and it should be. He campaigned on a promise to try to end the seemingly unbreakable and destructive negativity that separates the Democrats and Republicans. One of Obama’s most well-known pre-presidential skills was his ability to find common ground with those with whom his side did not agree. And this willingness to open dialogue with opponents is an admirable trait that also sets a good example that communication and compromise – and not merely brute strength – are the best ways to attain one’s goals.

The problem, however, is that until he became president, Barack Obama had never been forced to try to compromise with an opponent as loud, selfish, aggressive, uncompromising, delusional and hypocritical – in a word, infantile – as the modern Republican Party. This is a party that regularly trots out its spokespeople on national television to “debate” current affairs by passing on bald-faced lies about those affairs. (For instance, GOP talking heads still hit the airwaves and argue against the Employee Free Choice Act by falsely claiming that it removes union members’ rights to cast votes anonymously – even though this lie has been debunked over and over and over again in all forms of media. Is it just me, or do Republican talking heads sound more and more like zombies that mindlessly chant “need more brains” – or in this case, “need lower taxes” – every time they make an appearance?) This is a party that has made blatant hypocrisy its primary game plan; just yesterday former Republican congressman Newt Gingrich claimed that Barack Obama’s recent handshake greeting of Venezuelan’s leftist president Hugo Chavez sent a “terrible signal about how the new administration regards dictators.” I guess Mr. Gingrich thinks ruthless, genocidal dictators shaking hands with members of the Republican Party sends a better signal somehow? OK, fine, but this is also the party that, despite piles of evidence that contradict its argument, is still trying to convince you that the human race is having no effect on the environment whatsoever. And let’s not forget that a fairly large portion of this party inexplicably believes that the world was created in six days after god snapped his fingers like a genie. OK, so where exactly does president Obama think he’s going to find that common ground he’s so intent on sharing with Republicans? He certainly didn’t find any in the stimulus bill: not a single Republican member of the House of Representatives voted for it (and only two GOP senators broke party rank to vote yes). Foreign policy? Not unless Obama brandishes his nuclear ammo first and asks questions later. Warrant-less wiretapping? Ha! Just kidding. Prosecution of war crimes against the Bush Administration? Now hold on a second . . .

In the past couple of weeks it has become public knowledge that president Obama does not intend to pursue prosecutions against C.I.A. field officers who tortured prisoners upon the orders of their superiors. And, if White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is to be taken at his word, president Obama already has decided that he does not wish to prosecute any member of the Bush administration – not even those who supervised the use of torture and falsely claimed it was a legal means of interrogation. Obama was clear on his reasoning regarding the decision not to prosecute C.I.A. officers:

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and
emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful
chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing
disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame
for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right
its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence.
That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together
on behalf of our common future.

No sooner had those insights into president Obama’s intentions and motives regarding the pursuit (or non-pursuit) of justice against the Bush administration come to light than the New York Times published an article revealing that convicted 9/11 terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded a total of 183 times – one-hundred eighty-three times! – in a span of one month. This fact begs the question: at what point did Mohammed’s interrogators stop torturing for information and start torturing for shits and giggles? Or were they ever really torturing for information? No matter how one chooses to assess this revelation, the reality is that it is mind-numbingly despicable. It is despicable that my country – a country that, despite its well-documented past of transgressions against certain groups of the human race inside and outside its borders, is supposed to lead the way in human rights – sank to the level of its worst enemies by treating its prisoners in such an inhumane (and ineffective) manner. It is despicable that the leaders of my country would be so absurdly short-sighted as to believe that treating other human beings in such a way – no matter what heinous crimes they had been suspected of committing – would have absolutely zero consequences in the future? And it is despicable that our leaders went before the entire world and lied about the fact that they not only approved of using such degrading techniques, but that they actually conspired to apply such techniques and then attempt to make it legal to do so for all involved.

And still Barack Obama believes – or at least claims to believe – that is sufficient for us as a nation (and as one of the world’s supposedly civilized nations) to simply acknowledge the wrongdoings of the previous administration and then “turn the page.” Well, it’s time to tell Mr. Obama loudly and clearly that he is dead wrong – and no amount of political capital he foolishly think he’s going to gain by not pursuing justice against members of the Bush administration is worth the price. We all know this decision is motivated purely by politics (and perhaps a little self interest because of the possible consensual wrongdoings on the part of his Democratic allies); what other reason could somebody who has spoken so eloquently against the injustice of the Iraq War and the injustice of these “enhanced” interrogation techniques – and who is so intent on reclaiming the United States’ destroyed reputation around the world – have for not following through on such a clearly defined belief system? Clearly he believes he has something to gain by not pursuing justice against those who committed these terrible crimes – and that thing is political capital.

And this is where Obama quite possibly has become completely misguided. The first thing he should have learned (and learned very quickly) as a Democratic president is that the possession of political capital has absolutely no effect on any attempts to negotiate with this Republican Party. The members of this party do not believe in compromise; they believes only in the child-like delusion that, though they are no longer the majority in either house of congress, laws should be passed their way or no way at all. They believe that to give even one inch on any issue is traitorous to their cause and, more importantly, lethal to their own personal political survival (it has become readily apparent that Republican politicians increasingly see themselves as panicked Frankenstein’s monsters being chased through the streets by an angry, bloodthirsty constituency – sad indeed). This a party that believes its first duty is to regain power over the political process and its second duty to do whatever it wants to with that power – doing what’s right for the growing majority of unhappy citizens who cannot afford health care or their own homes is nowhere on this party’s agenda, folks. This is a minority party that will say or do anything – including things that fuel the fires of ignorance, hatred and possible violence against its enemies – in order to prevent the passing of laws of which it does completely approve. In short: political capital has absolutely no effect whatsoever on the way Republicans go about their business. Whether they are rolling in political capital or are completely bereft of anything even resembling political capital, Republicans operate with a “my way or the highway” mentality. They cannot be reasoned with and they cannot be bargained with.

Crimes – very serious crimes – were committed by people both high and low in rank in the Bush administration. These crimes all but destroyed our reputation around the world and more than likely produced a whole new generation of people (Muslim or not) with bottomless pits of burning hatred for the United States – future terrorists, in other words, who were created by the same man who foolishly claimed to have been “winning the war” to defeat terrorists once and for all. The only true way to restore the world’s faith in our country and its system of government is to bring those who committed these horrible crimes to justice. Bringing these criminals to justice would not be a mere act of political retribution – in fact, politics has nothing to do with it; more accurately it would be a sensible, just course of action, a course desired by many citizens of this country and an even greater number of citizens outside this country. Is the denial of justice for so many millions of people worth the acquisition of political capital – political capital that cannot even be used?

We can only hope that President Obama does not think so and thus allows the Attorney General to proceed pursuing the justice he is legally obligated to carry out.