Jeff Kent and the Wild Card

Jeff Kent of the Astros came back to San Francisco this last week and made some interesting comments. First he asked KNBR to “enjoy the game” and not bitch and moan about the baseball all the time. Interesting comment, but nothing personal. Then he said the people in the Bay Area are so stupid for paying so much for real estate. Not sure why you would say something like that. Kent is a wannabe cowboy from Southern California. Why would anybody aspire to be a southern cowboy? There’s something wrong with you if that’s your goal in life. Not only does Kent not appreciate the sophistication of the Bay Area after living here for several years, he is actually talking down on it. A caller to KNBR later made a smart comment. He said we pay all this money for real estate to make sure our neighbor is not a red-neck ! That’s so true.

Living in SF can be an unique experience. Your neighbor might be a black guy married to a asian girl from Thailand. On the other side, you might have a White Buddhist Vegetarian family. Across the street you might have a lesbian couple living in peace. Down the street, there might be an Indian Yoga place. This is diversity at it’s best. Just by talking to your neighbors, you can know more about the World than probably going to high school in Shreveport, Louisiana! This is what you pay for. Of course if your are sophisticated enough to appreciate and like this kind of an experience. I have nothing against any part of this country. I truly love this country. Someday, I would like to live in every major city in this country. I know it’s a pipe dream, but it’s something I would like to do. I like White people, I like rednecks, I like everybody as long as they don’t hate others. But lets face it, it’s just a lot more fun to live in a diverse place like SF than to live with a bunch of white dudes in Houston. It just is.

Wild Card
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Now, on to the wild card discussion in baseball. This year, there were a bunch of teams competing for the one wild card spot in both leagues, especially the NL. Immediately everybody started saying how great wild card was for baseball. How it keeps a whole bunch of teams and their fans involved longer in the season. They were taking shots at the “purists” who criticize the wild card. Yeah, it does keep a whole bunch of people involved and excited for a long time. This makes a lot of business sense too. More revenue to be made all around and that’s probably why MLB likes it. Packed houses in Houston, San Diego and Chicago don’t hurt. But what’s good for more number of fans doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for baseball as a whole. I think it’s easy and obvious to see the apparent advantages of the wild card. But it needs a little more imagination and intelligence to appreciate the argument against the wild card.

If you read Bob Costas’ book Fairball, he makes a couple of points against the wild card. One of which is how it cheapens the pennant chase. The other point is about scheduling which we will deal with later. Though we don’t have a true pennant chase with the three divisions, even the division races and the rivalries that go with it are cheapened by the wild card. People seem to think this year was a good argument for wild card. Actually it was a good argument against as well. Look at the NL West. The Giants and the Dodgers are separated by a game and a half, but the Giants fans are more concerned about the Cubs and the wild card where the difference is just ½ a game because they don’t think they have a real shot at the division. Even when they play each other and the Giants lose, it’s always like “what happened to the Cubs today?” And the Giants fan is not too upset if the Cubs also lost. Can you imagine the intensity and relevance of these games if there were no wild card? Wouldn’t we rather have an unadulterated race for the NL west title between the Giants and the Dodgers?

Same story with the Yanks and Red Sox. A couple of weeks back they were playing each other when the Red Sox were 3 or so games behind the Yanks. But they had pretty much clinched the wild card. In spite of all the usual hype that goes with this East Coast rivalry, I didn’t really care. What were they playing for? Absolutely nothing. Both were pretty much in the playoffs when the series started and the story was the same when it ended. If there were no wild card, this series would have meant so much more even though Red Sox would have had an uphill task.

Lets look at the flip side of this argument. Teams like Houston, Chicago, Florida and San Diego, who are trailing their division leaders by 5 to 15 games, are still involved in this wild card race. Obviously their fans are very excited and they have something to follow. A Cubs-Astros series might draw a lot of interest from their fans. But lets look at it from a neutral fan’s standpoint. What really is all this hype about? Both these teams are 15 games behind in their division! They are nowhere near St. Louis and they are basically fighting for second place. Why are we getting all excited? It reminds me of a line from the TV show Seinfeld where Jerry says the worst thing in Olympics is to win the Silver medal! It just means that among all the losers, you are the best. In other words, you are the biggest loser! The wild card is kind of the same. The Astros and Cubs are fighting to be the biggest loser behind the Cards - to the tune of 15 games. I would rather watch a “meaningless” series between two division winners St. Louis and Atlanta than Houston - Chicago. At least we know we are watching good teams with St. Louis and Atlanta.

The other problem is with the scheduling. MLB went for a balanced schedule for a few years, which clearly takes away from the division races. We would rather want the Giants-Dodgers, Yankees-Red Sox and Oakland-Anaheim to be played more often than the other non-divisional matchups. But the problem with the unbalanced schedule is that it’s not the way to determine the wild card. Now MLB is back to an unbalanced schedule, which is great, but that makes the wild card even more stupid. You are basically picking between the Cubs, Giants and the Marlins who are all playing different schedules. How do you decide who’s better? The unbalanced schedule is too important for divisional races, but it basically screws up the wild card.

So I think the wild card has it pros and cons, but definitely more cons than pros. Lets junk it.

Fantasy Notes
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I had a rough second week in the Homies league. Deuce McAlister got hurt in the first quarter and everything went downhill from there. I did win the other two leagues. I picked up Aaron Stecker in the homies league. Not sure how he fell to me, but he helped me win my first game in week 3. In the forward lateral league, I am losing a big star to a season long injury every week  First Steve Smith, next Kellen Winslow Jr. and now Nate Webster, but I am still 3-0. I am 2-1 in the Yahoo league after a close defeat in week 3. I had some bye week issues. I should be back in week 4.

Oakland and the A’s

More on the Monday (Sept 14-th) night fight at the Oakland coliseum during the A’s game. The Texas Rangers bullpen attacked the fans and their pitcher Frank Francisco threw a chair into the stands. I was watching on TV and I saw the chair hit a woman. Apparently she was the wife of a heckler. The hecklers were making the usual comments at the fat guys like “you can use a salad” etc. And then one guy apparently said to Francisco that his family is waiting outside the Home Depot. This was apparently a racial reference about the Hispanics working at Home Depot. One caller to a talk show said that this is especially true in the East Bay where Hispanics show up in the morning and are looking for a job at the Home Depot. Whatever was said, it was obvious that the fans didn’t cross the line. Even on TV, I had no indication that the fans got onto the field or poured beer on the players. It was the players who tried to get into the stands. So I was actually a little upset with the Oakland PA announcer warning the fans that if they get on the field, A’s would forfeit the game. I was like, why are you saying this? The fans never got on the field to begin with.

This brings up an interesting point. The Oakland A’s fans seem to get a bad rap from the national media. I think most of it is because of the Raider fans. People around the country assume that the A’s fans are as rowdy as the Raiders fan and they are not. I heard such insinuations on the Jim Rome show and all other national shows. But there were quite a few Bay Area callers calling and defending the A’s fan saying they are pretty docile and nice. They made my point and I was happy about that. But for some reason they seem to have problems every now and then. Last year somebody threw a cell phone at Carl Everett and this year we have this and people probably think they are seeing a pattern here. . Me don’t think. Adding to this perception are comments from the Rangers claiming that they always have problems here. They are obviously trying to defend their indefensible acts and I don’t think it’s true.

Good Week 1

NFL week 1 was awesome as usual. The Raiders and the Niners lost which was not good news for the bay area fans. I thought both of them improved in the second half of their respective games. Their first halves were really as bad as the worst-case prediction for both teams. Gannon improved in the second half and had a couple of nice bombs to Doug Gabriel and Elvis Whitted. That should have warmed the heart of coach Norv Turned. Tyronne Wheatley couldn't do much against the Blitzburgh D. As for the Niners, Ken Dorsey replaced Tim Rattay and seemed to energize the offense. Rattay was good when he got back in later. I think Ken Dorsey is the QB of the future. It would be interesting to see him start in week 2 against N'aaleans.

The Sunday night game on ESPN was a great one between the Denver Broncos and the Chiefs. I am a Broncos fan these days because of my boy Jake Plummer ! He was at ASU when I went to ASU. He was his usual self on Sunday. Throwing a crazy, left-handed interception in the midst of some good passes and great scrambles. Jake giveth, Jake taketh away ! This game also featured my new favorite RB, Quentin Griffin. This guy is awesome ! He seems to have the best moves AB (after Barry Sanders). My other favorite RB priest Holmes was stellar as usual, but not enough. Overall the top RBs had top-notch performances. Priest Holmes, LT, Ahman Green, Shawn Alex, Clinton Portis, Curtis Martin, Marshall Faulk, Dominack Davis and Q all did very well. The only failures were Jamal Lewis and Deuce McAllister.

Fantasy Notes
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Deuce better fix things quickly. He is my RB in the Homies league. I lost the game here, but won handsomely in the other 2 leagues. Also Charles Rogers got injured in this league. I hope to get Ricky Proehl or Brandon Stockley to replace him. In one of my other leagues, I lost Steve Smith to injury and I was already thin at WR in :-( In the third Yahoo league I gave up on my sleeper pick Justin Gage and am jumping on the Doug Gabriel bandwagon. Lets see how it shakes out. I spent way too much time this weekend on FFL. It was fun, but not sure if it's going to get me results.

Baseball Note
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I play a fantasy baseball league on Yahoo as well. This is a public league and I am doing real bad. SO I have almost given up for this season. Today there was a serious fight at the A's-Rangers game at Oakland. A player ended up throwing a chair into the crowd. That hit a poor lady who should be suing his behind anytime now. Weird ...

NFL 2004 !

The 2004 NFL season started today finally. One of the few days I actually got home early (before 6 PM here on the left coast). I was hoping to see a great game and the Patriots-Colts didn't disappoint one bit. This is what sets NFL apart from the the MLB and the NBA. It's playoff type intensity, effort and energy from game 1. And it's this way every year. It doesn't even have to be great teams kicking things off like we had today. Every NFL team thinks they are good anyways, especially in week 1 in this parity-era. Last year's Redskins-Jets season opener was just as intensely fought and neither team made it to the playoffs at the end. Coming back to today's game, this kid Tom Brady is really getting good. I have always thought he was kind of over-rated. He still probably is, but I have to grudgingly accept that he is good. He is accurate and always seems to make the right decision. Playing all those big games over the last few years has definitely helped Brady. He seems to have that intangible "it" that everybody talks about. Corey Dillon was probably under-used initially, but he got his touches eventually. Hopefully the Pats will use him more appropriately from the game 2.

I am not a big fan of the Pats or Tom Brady. So I was pulling for the Colts. I am big a fan of Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison and Peyton Manning. Just too much class there. Also Manning is probably the best QB in the league and how can you not like their high-octane offense ? Their defense is pathetic as always. But tonight, they let one get away. Fumbles and interceptions cost them. As always Bill Belichick came up with the great blitz call at the end which put Manning on his back and pushed Vanderjagt out of his comfort zone. I knew immediately he was going to miss the kick because he didn't kick with authority today. Even the extra points looked wobbly and shaky on TV. Edge looked great. I couldn't believe how easily they rushed up the gut against the Pats defense. I would be concerned if I were a Patriots fan. I can't see them winning the Super Bowl again with this run defense though this was against a good offense and a great rusher. I expect other teams to copy the Colts and try and rush against the Pats all year long. We have seen this time and time again where a great NFL team gets figured out in a couple of years and every team in the league start hitting them at the weak spot. Could this be happening to the Pats this year ? Me think so.

Fantasy Notes:
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I am in 3 different fantasy leagues. I was impressed with the performance of Deion Branch, David Givens and Dallas Clark in the game. I could still get Dallas Clark in one of the leagues, but I already have Alge Crumpler (Atl - TE) and Jason Witten (Dal - TE) in my roster. So I couldn't pick him up :-( The other two Pats receivers are all taken in all the 3 leagues. So no tangible fantasy moves came out of tonite's game. I was going to put some money on the over (44.5 pts.) too. But I wanted to enjoy the game without any gambling angle. In fact, luckily I had no players from either team in any of my 3 fantasy teams. That was kind of surprising. So I could watch the whole game un-encumbered. But I did guess right on the "over" though. If only I had put some money ...