Alternatives to Journalism

Days like today I ponder alternatives to this esteemed career path that I've chosen for myself.

1) Air-traffic control
Pro: Less stress
Con: Can be fired at any time by fascist presidents

2) Street Crime
Pro: More integrity
Con: Night hours only

3) Shepherding
Pro: Open air
Con: Persistent smell of lamb chops

Please feel free to forward any other suggestions. I'm a desperate man.

I Am The Eck Man

I can't decide which is worse: Jeff Suppan spouting know-nothing Republican indoctrination or another 12 months of David Eckstein descriptions including, "pesky," ""gritty," "clutch," "gutsy," and "plucky."

Let me offer my own adjectives for the Eck-Man: "short," "white," "non-hitting," "lucky,""overrated."

Fuck Jeff Suppan

For the first three games of the series, I was an unabashed Cardinals fan. Maybe I just got fed up with everyone saying that Detroit was obviously the better team. But now I finally have a reason to cheer for Detroit.

Doesn't Kurt Warner look like he's in a prison jumpsuit?

Going down to Rosedale

Lots of stuff around about The Gambler's schmutz. But this is one of the better takes. Wish I'd written it.

File under: What The @#$% is Tony LaRussa Thinking?

Ronnie Belliard batting fifth?

Game 2

I don't want to take anything away from The Gambler's outstanding 8 inning effort. But I wonder if Tony LaRussa helped him along by batting Juan Encarnacion fifth and Jim Edmonds sixth. I know that Rogers is hell on lefties. And Encarnacion hit .316/.346/.492 against lefties in the regular season (.261/.303/.421 against righties). But over the previous three years, the splits were much less dramatic (.285/.349/.425 vs .262/.313/.435). Plus he simply isn't swinging the bat well.

Edmonds, for his part, had truly awful numbers against lefties in 2006 (.156/.198/.281 vs .295/.404/.543), numbers likely affected by owies to his shoulder, elbow, concussion, knees, and likely a toothache. Nevertheless, when one increases the sample size (.266/.336/.505 vs .279/.405/.576), you have a much more competent hitter than Encarnacion ever was. Could go either way on this, I suppose. But El Hombre and Scott Rolen were on three times when Encarnacion came up and all three times he went down meekly (He advanced Rolen in the 9th on an error by Todd Jones).

I really wish announcers would stop calling David Eckstein pesky. First of all it makes him sound like an insect. Second of all, he's been hitting about as well as one for the past couple of seasons. Stick a fork in him.

Bases loaded, bottom of the 9th. LaRussa sends up ... TADA! ... Yadda Yadda Yadda. Yes, he's had a great post season. But let's face it, Zoe swings a better bat. And Chris Duncan is left on the bench.

Groundout to shortstop, and I can get five hours of sleep.

Game 1

So much for momentum.

I was at the theatre tonight (more on that later), so I didn't watch. But I will say my father-in-law was incensed. "A team as bad as the Cardinals has no business being in the World Series."

The mantra goes that only one pennant winning team has a worse record than the 2006 Cardinals: The 1973 Mets.

I guess we shouldn't even bother playing the series then.

When I have time, I'll go back and find out how often the best team in the league won the series. I'm guessing it's not as frequent as people think.

Fall Classic

Many people will have more things to say and more time to say it than I will. Viva El Birdos and Detroit Tiger Weblog are just two of them. My problem with both the coverage and many of my friends' opinions is the fait accompli that the Tigers are going to steamroll the Cardinals. There are many good reasons to believe this. The Birds have too many easy outs throughout their lineup. El Hombre, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds are all hurting. Chris Carpenter got a rock in his trick or treat bag. And let's face it, Detroit has played great baseball in April, May, June and October.

Furthermore, they have "momentum" on their side after bitchslapping the Yankees and the A's into the middle of next week. I'm not sure how to measure "momentum." It's strikes me as trying to calculate how well a hitter does after the organist plays the "CHARGE!" paean. Nevertheless, it's taken for granted that Detroit's pitchers will be well rested and ready to bury the Cards.

My question is this: What are the stats on pitchers that pitch on more than 4 days rest? Is there a health risk to doing that (assuming you're not missing a start for another health reason) or if there's a loss of 'sharpness' when you're not pitching at > regular intervals.

This is by no means a scientific argument. But two of Minnesota's pitchers: Boof Bonser and Scott Baker got absolutely shelled when they their turns were skipped. Although, they may simply be poorer pitchers.

But Bonderman and Verlander have both dealt with arm and shoulder issues in the second half and both of their numbers are down. Rest could very well help them, but I wonder if there's a risk as well. Presumably they've been throwing on the side in simulated games, etc. But any pitcher will tell you there's a world of difference between simulated games and the real thing.

As for me, I don't want to take anything away from Detroit. They've earned to be where they are by playing amazing baseball. But let's not be too quick to write off St. Louis. Yes, they will be tired. But I would argue that Detroit is pitching well above their heads in the playoffs (certainly Rogers is).

At the end of the day, we're talking about professional athletes here that are well conditioned and trained to play under pressure.

Tigers in 6.

Torre stays, Will A-Rod go?

Pravda has spoken. The most lucid words I read on the subject came from Steve Goldman. I'm not sure how Torre can look A-Rod in the face after batting him 8th in game 4, or essentially throwing him under a bus, aided and abetted by Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter, in the Sports Illustrated article last month.

The Yankees won't be a better team without A-Rod, but if they can parlay him into #1 or #2 starter under the age of 27 (Erwin Santana) along with a decent hot corner man, I won't shed a tear. That said, it's nothing short of disgraceful how the Yankees and the New York media have treated him.

For the record, here are the numbers post-All Star break:

Rodriguez: .300/.394/.545
Giambi: .243/.410/.481

Interview with Bruce Spring...er...Dave Marsh

In this article for the socialist newsletter CounterPunch, Dave Marsh posits himself as the surrogate Boss. He manages to stifle the usual vitriol that mars his culteral criticism, but he's still essentially a glorified Springsteen flak. Nevertheless it's a good read. His liner notes to the Seeger Sessions album are here. They were supposed to be included in the so-called American Land version of the album. But they're not in my version. Springsteen's flak Marilyn Laverty had nothing to say about it. If anyone out there knows anything about it, please advise.

They all hate us anyhow

More and more, I find myself singing Randy Newman's "Political Science" to myself all day long.

Ameteur Candy Landers need not apply

My mother came over today to help me with kids. Today's present for Zoe was Candy Land - Dora The Explorer, her very first board game. Zoe couldn't contain her glee and in no time my mother, Zoe and I were engaged in a cutthroat game of Candy Land. Everyone seemed to be enjoying herself, until my mother unwittingly landed on one of these special spots that allows her to move several spaces ahead. We were unaware of this rule until well after the game was underaway. When my mother consulted the rulebook midway through the game, her face flushed before spewing. "This isn't fair, Zoe! You're not playing the game right!"

Zoe's therpy fund is well fortified.

Baseball wisdom

"Nobody goes up there trying to make an out. If you think the Yankees go up to the plate and want to make outs, you're dead wrong." -- John Sterling, WCBS-880 AM, during the Yankees final game of the post season.

Instead of trading A-Rod, maybe we can trade Sterling...

Parenting 101

Part of Zoe and my nightly ritual is computer time. Usually I'll sneak down into the basement with the hopes of getting an hour of time to myself to peruse the box scores, plot my roto baseball strategy, organize and reorganize my iPod or look for porn. After about an hour, Deborah will start throwing individual pieces of dirty laundry down the stairs at five minute intervals. If I still haven't gotten the hint, she'll just send Zoe down after me.

Zoe and I play lots of games in the basement. Sometimes we'll run on the treadmill together. Sometimes will dismantle the laundry basket and use the metal rods to fence, or play hockey. But mostly, it's computer time.

Computer time with a 3-and-a-half year old general means she calls out a random cartoon character, while I call up the game sites in question. She has little interest in operating the mouse herself, although I do try to encourage her. Rather, she watches me play the games.

Some of these games are fucking hard. I give you Goofy Goalie, for example. I swear they rig this thing to drive parents insane. I have yet to score more than four goals on Goofy.

Then there's Dora The Explorer's Puppy Adventure. Took me a year to figure this one out. There's no better motivator than a 3-and-a-half-year-old shrieking, "Daddy, you're not doing it right!" Which is rather ironic, since that's what I shriek at reporters in the office: "You're not doing it right!"

But my current favorite is Mickey And Friends Super Racer . The best part of this game is you get one "life." None of this PacMan shit of three "lives." You get one mulligan. If you fuck up again, you're done. So you race around this track and you have click to collect "fuel" to complete the race. And you have to time the click just right. Otherwise, you run out of gas and the game is over.

Zoe gets kind of excited during this game. So last night she stood up in her computer chair and started jumping up and down. In so doing, she obstructed my view of the monitor.

"Zoe! Sit down! Daddy can't see the screen. You're gonna make me lose the race!"

Was that bad parenting?

Shoes in heaven

"Buck O'Neil died tonight, without having made the Hall Of Fame. That's even more of a disgrace than the Yankees' hitting the last two games." -- Tony Sachs, NYCD

The Miracle of Parenthood

Since last we spoke, I've seen quite a few blogs. Some of them are useful. Some of them are entertaining. Rarely are they both. But everyone on the right hand column offers a decent perspective on things they know something about, be it music, journalism, technology, theatre, etc.

At one point, I actually thought I had something to say about all of these things. But after a year of writer's block, false starts, missed opportunities and broken promises to myself and others, it occurs to me that I have nothing at all to say.

This makes me akin to 99.8 percent of the blogs out there.

So in the mantra of my old creative writing workshop, I will write what I know. And since I've pretty much taken a blowtorch to my writing and journalism career, I will spend my free time writing about the one aspect of my life I have yet to fuck up.

My children.

Thankfully, they are only 3-and-a-half and 1-and-a-half. So I still have plenty of time to fuck them up.

I hope I don't though. Because then I truly won't have anything to write about.

I guess then I could write a food column...

Dear Mom

How are you? I am fine. Camp has been really swell. Little Jimmy fell into the lake today. We all laughed. He got a water snake in his boot. Sorry I haven't written in a while. It's not like I haven't been thinking of you. I've just been really busy pondering the sorry existence of the human condition. But we have soccer tomorrow. So that should be fun.

Love to Dad