Friday Classic Video: Stair Defeats Woman

After the last post's somewhat contentious commenting (which was entirely Side Bar's fault; he's a jerkface), I thought we could use a little levity.

Now, since the three other writers here are probably 50% of the folks who'll see this clip, most of you already saw this. But still, I can watch it over and over, so let's save it for posterity.


Chick Slips And Slams Head On Stairs - Watch more free videos

The Mets and the Mean

I think that I have been about as critical of the Mets as anyone so far this year, and Open Bar and I have been saying for a while now that it is a mistake to expect much out of this team (as he already noted). But I think it is still a little premature to write them off, especially given what happened last year. Coincidentally, or not, on May 24, 2007, the Phillies were under .500, in fourth place in the NL East, and 6.5 games out of first (as are the Mets today, almost exactly one year later). And on that same date, the Rockies, Diamondbacks and Cubs (the three other 2007 NL playoff teams), were in last place, third place and second place, respectively. On June 1, 2007, none of the eventual NL playoff teams was in first place and only one of them was over .500 on that date. It was not until July 28, 2007, that the first of these four teams - the Diamondbacks - made it in to first place in their division (tied with LA on that date). And of course, as we all know, the last NL playoff team to take first place in their division was the Phillies (I just stabbed myself in the leg with a No. 3 pencil).

Of course, a number of surprising things had to happen for the Phillies and Rockies to get in, and for the Padres and Mets to fall out (side note: the Padres seem to be getting an absolute free ride here; they collapsed just like the Mets last year, and they suck just like the Mets this year. I know, I know, payroll. But still). I am hardly suggesting that we can count on other teams in the NL East to fall apart at the end of the season, but 6.5 games (six in the loss column) is hardly insurmountable with more than 100 left to play.

I think part of the explanation here is that, while it is impossible to resist the temptation to do so, it just is not appropriate to draw major conclusions based on a team's performance for just over a quarter of a season. In that span, you can see numbers that won't carry through for a whole year. Start with the Phillies. They are a solid team, and played a lot of their best baseball this year without reigning NL MVP, Jimmy Rollins. But their offense is still playing over its head: Chase Utley and Pat Burrell were both putting up unsustainable numbers for a while, and both have started to descend back to earth. Ryan Howard will improve, but strikes out too much. Neither Chris Coste nor Greg Dobbs can continue to hit in the .340's forever. On paper, our pitching staff is still better than theirs (even without an effective Pedro).

The Marlins are a great story, but have too many young pitchers to compete down the stretch. Dan Uggla and Hanley Ramirez are both going to have solid careers, but I would still take Reyes and Beltran for the long term (yes, I really would). Watch for this team to begin to fade shortly before the All-Star Break.

The Braves actually scare me more than anyone else in this division. Their pitching might prove to be competitive for the full year: Hudson is on par with Santana, Jair Jurrjens (or whatever) looks legit, Glavine will be serviceable, and their other starters have all performed pretty well. Their offense is solid (Chipper will cool off, but won't struggle), and their bullpen looks good (at least against us). They can't win on the road, which seems odd, but might correct itself by the end of the year.

The point is that while each of these teams has undeniably played better than the Mets, each of them has done so with almost all of their players performing at or above expectations. With the exceptions of Ryan Church and Billy Wagner, I think it is fair to say that every met has underperformed reasonable expectations for the year so far. Wright and Santana are close calls, but I think we could have expected better than 5-3 with 932 home runs out of Santana, and I know that Wright's numbers look decent right now, but other than one weekend when he was on an absolute tear in Philly, he has not been playing at his highest level.

The rest of the team is really just miserable. Beltran, Reyes, and Delgado have all disappointed, and it is reasonable to expect Maine and Perez to last longer than the fifth inning. I am pretty sure Mike Pelfrey really is that bad, so forget him.

I am not saying that I expect the Mets to make the playoffs, but I am saying that if everyone in the NL East regresses to the mean over a full season, I think we can expect it to be a bit closer, and the Mets to play a bit better. I can accept and admit that they may not be the best team in the division, but I struggle to believe that this is really a .500 team.

Things That Are Overrated (and Underrated): Baseball Managers

Argh. 23 wins, 26 losses. 7 losses in the last 8 games. Ladies and gentlemen, your New York Mets!

I hate to be Chicken Little here, but the goddamn sky is (very close to) falling. As Side Bar and I have said repeatedly this year (in bars, not here so much), the Mets just ain't that good. Certain very respectable baseball outlets predicted the Mets not only to win the division, but win as many as 99 games. That would now require the Mets to go 76-37 the rest of the season. That's a .667 winning percentage. That's winning 2 out of every 3 for the rest of the year. That's...unlikely.

Some have been saying that firing Willie Randolph is, if not a perfect solution, the right first step. I have no idea if the Mets would win more games the rest of the year with Willie or without him. I happen to think baseball managers receive waaaay too much credit and blame for the performance of the team. Joe Torre became the yankees' manager in 1996, a year after Buck Showalter utterly failed by getting his team to the playoffs for the first time in 14 years but lost in 5 games in the ALDS. What an asshole. Put that Torre guy in! He's got a career managerial record of 894-1003. That's a .471 winning percentage!

Lo and behold, Torre (single-handedly, from the bench, without ever pitching or hitting or fielding) won the World Series 4 of the next 5 years. And as we all know, he totally shat the bed the next 7 years, getting his team to the playoffs every year, the World Series twice, and tallying a 686-445 record (.606).

But hey, these are the fucking yankees. No World Series wins in 7 years? Fuck him. Gimme Girardi.

Girardi so far? 25-26. Last place. Um, Mr. Torre? You around? What's that about Los Angeles? Oh, okay. Well, call me!

You know what Willie Randolph is bad at? Selecting a lineup (Luis Castillo still bats second. Barf.), using his relievers (putting Aaron Heilman in, ever), responding appropriately and effectively when the umpires blatantly steal a 3-run Carlos Delgado home run. It took the bench coach, Jerry Manuel, a few pitches before he realized Willie wasn't gonna do shit, so he took things in his own hands and got himself booted. Well played, Mr. Manuel. Do you have a resume?

So what is Willie Randolph good at? I'm not really sure, but he seems to be respected by his players. I hear a lot of this “leader of men” talk about him, and I'm sure that's valuable in a manager. But ultimately, much like the esteemed Joe Torre of 1996-2000, the manager doesn't throw the ball, hit the ball, or field the ball. His main jobs are filling out a lineup card every game, choosing which reliever to use and when, handling the media (in New York especially), and leading the team (which can be defined many, many ways). You might say a manager makes all kinds of in-game decisions too, and you're right, but I'd say about 99 percent of those decisions are fairly easy to make if you know as much about baseball as a manager should. The remaining one percent should not outweigh any of the other factors.

Willie does okay handling the media (notwithstanding his recent comments about people getting pissed at him being somewhat race-related). And as I said, I hear he's a decent leader. But his lineups and bullpen usage suck. So I give him 2 up and 2 down. So keep him? Fire him? It's a coin toss. If you can find me a (currently unemployed) candidate who you are certain will be better than that, let me know. Better, email Fred Wilpon. (I don't have his info, so just post it in the comments. Fred's a reader.)

But back to Joe Torre for a sec. 1996-2000: too much credit? 2001-2007: too much blame? That's what I'd say. I'd say that the players played a bit better early in Torre's tenure than later. Pitching especially. That 1998 yankees team was so fucking good, I guarantee you I could have “managed” the team to, maybe not 114 wins, but a good 96 or so.

The 2006 Mets? What an awesome team. Much moreso because Carlos Delgado could still hit, Duaner Sanchez (pre-Phillies-fan-driven-taxi incident) was disgusting, Endy Chavez made that kinda half-decent catch, and much more.

Although, if you think about it, that roster really wasn't that much more than the current roster. Swap out Jose Valentin for Luis Castillo at second? Wash. Pedro was there for a while, then he wasn't, and didn't really make much of an impact (as a pitcher); this year, even less Pedro, still no impact. Most of the differences in the rosters are insignificant, even if they are many.

Certain players on both the '06 and '08 teams, despite wearing the same number, using the same name, and (allegedly) still being the same person, have not so far this season resembled their '06 doppelgangers.

I think you may already know who I'm talking about. But it really explains things quite clearly.

The Mets have 5 really good players (Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Santana, and Wagner), a bunch of mediocre guys (the always-hurt Alou, the fast-aging Delgado, the way-overperforming-but-I-love-it Ryan Church, some of the bench guys), and a bunch of guys who suck (the also-way-overperforming Brian Schneider, Castillo, the rest of the bench guys and most of the bullpen).

Currently, of the 5 good players, Wright, Santana, and Wagner have done what I expect of them – play really well – if not playing exceptionally well. (Though you could make a case for Wagner being the best closer in baseball so far this year.) But Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran have – much like '01-'07 Joe Torre, except in reality, not like what dumbass talk radio callers claimed – shat the bed. There is absolutely no way the Mets will get anywhere near first place this year if those two can't remember how to hit. The rest of the lineup can't cover them. Ryan Church has done his best (and made me forgive Omar for trading Blastings – possibly a greater feat than his play so far), but he can't make up for both Reyes and Beltran. Thus, 23-26.

Even if Beltran and Reyes revert to their 2006 form, I still don't see us winning more than 85 games or so. We need another bat and another arm – just like almost every other team. The problem is, we mortgaged the farm system to get Santana (a move I still support), so we have no one to offer. Therefore, the odds of us getting the extra player or two we need are slim, unless Omar can pull off another Santana-style miracle.

In case you hadn't noticed, I didn't really make any notes before I starting typing. Hence the total lack of structure. Sorry 'bout that. Whereby I now return to Willie Randolph. I guess my thoughts regarding his status now are:

1. I don't think it'll make much difference if he stays or goes;
   
2. I do think that the team's performance is largely due to the fact that Reyes and Beltran are sucking; and
   
3. Please understand that if a manager's players aren't playing well, it's highly unlikely that he can hold enough team meetings or get fired up on the field often enough to somehow “will” the team to a better record.

In conclusion, despite my disappointment and occasional display of irrational anger at the Mets so far this year, there is a very clear reason I've been able to maintain my emotional sanity:

The yankees are in last place.

:-)

Friday Classic Video: This is mostly for Internet nerds (like me)

First off, Weezer is awesome. They're one of the ultimate "nerd" bands. Lead singer Rivers Cuomo wears glasses, for God's sake. David Brooks, whom Chuck loves, wrote something today about how "nerds" are different from "geeks." Whatever. As I'm sure Stan Gable would say, a nerd is a nerd is a geek is a nerd.

But anyway, I fucking love the Internet. At my "job," I have a lot of down time. I regularly check out Digg, FunnyOrDie, Cracked, GorillaMask, Ebaum's World, and Facebook. Facebook, by the way, is way beyond "the new MySpace," as was brilliantly illustrated here: "MySpace Intervention." Ha. I had a lot of LOLs and ROTFLs and LMFAOs and BLOWMEs watching that. Oh, what's that, Grandma? You didn't understand what I just wrote? Sorry, but welcome to the nineties.

So here's the new Weezer video. A good many Internet "stars" are featured, some of whom have been lucky enough to appear on our little blog site. Enjoy!

Say it Ain't Sue UPDATED

I'll perhaps add to this later, but I had to get this up here this morning. I love it.

Sue Simmons, NBC local news anchor in New York for what feels like the last 20 years or so, was doing a promo for the 11 o'clock news last night, and apparently lost her cool with someone on the set, resulting in this embarrassing video. (sorry - I can't seem to embed it on the site).

UPDATE: Here's the video, yay!!!



My childhood memories of watching Sue read stories about Hurricane Gloria while we were home from school are forever changed . . .

Stupid ways to "analyze" things

Side Bar's previous post included a lovely picture of Dusty Baker embracing Barry Bonds. Dusty Baker -- regardless of his possibly amorous feelings about Bonds -- is an idiot. I mean this baseball-analysis-wise; I'm not judging him as a person whatsoever (if you ignore that he let his 5-year-old son wander out near home plate in the 2002 World Series, where J.T. Snow basically saved the dumbass kid's life). Dusty was a pretty good baseball player, but he's a fucking terrible manager and an even worse TV analyst, as has been repeatedly documented on the best Web site ever. Anyone who suggests that fat players like Frank Thomas are bad at baseball because they "clog up the basepaths" by getting on base way more frequently than others doesn't understand that getting on base leads directly to scoring runs. Scoring more runs than the other team leads to winning baseball games, which is the whole objective of playing baseball against another team.

Sorry for the whole sabermetric bitching about Dusty, but the larger point I'm getting at is that stupid analysis of any topic, be it baseball or, say, politics, needs to be pointed out.

I read a lot about politics, including many blogs by supporters of Barack, Hillary, McCain, and Ned Goldman. One day, I came across the hotly-named TexasDarlin, a big Hillary supporter. I've tried to resist commenting much on these kind of blogs, because most Internet commenting (this site excluded) is full of complete nonsense (okay, this site included), and I've often found myself getting mad at things I've read. Getting angry at what what Internet commenters write is just plain dumb (thanks, Joe):


But sometimes, I read something that is just so outright stupid, I have to reply. TexasDarlin posted something that -- while it's short of much of what I've read on pro-Hillary sites in terms of blatant ignorance -- so defies reason and logical comprehension, I (gasp) commented. So here I post the comment. (It would be helpful if you read her post in its entirety first, since this is just a comment. But you probably won't bother, so go ahead and read, you lazy fuck.)

(Open Bar:) Really? Let's go through this one at a time.

(TexasDarlin:) "Rural America can determine who becomes the next President."

Of course rural America will play a huge role. Rural America = half of America, so clearly half of America will play a prominent role. No one is arguing against that.

"Check out the county-by-county results from four very close contests (Clinton is red; Obama, green)"

Do states in either the primaries or general election use "counties won" to determine the victor? Or anything at all? If a state's election is close (and you chose states that were close), but the county-by-county color map is dominated by one color, does that mean that A) The candidate with more counties in his/her color should therefore win, or B) Way more people (i.e., voters) live in certain counties than others? In a state election, the victor is determined solely by which candidate receives more votes, not by how an color-based illustration of the state looks afterwards. Colors should not outweigh numbers. Any Democrat should know this, especially after how Rove used the 2000 and 2004 national Red/Blue maps to say that America is clearly a Republican country, when the numbers told a very different story. Nebraska is way bigger than New Jersey; if you compared just those states side by side and judged by color, you'd say Red Nebraska is way more important than Blue New Jersey. Yet New Jersey's population is way bigger, hence more electoral votes.

"As you can see, Clinton's base covers a broader geographic region."

As I said before, a "broader geographic region" doesn't mean anything if it doesn't equate with the population living in those regions. Please stop conflating colors with voters.

"Pay attention, folks. These are General Election swing voters needed to reach 270 electoral votes.

Swing voters.

And no one understands that better than the Superdelegates, many of whom rely on these same voters for their own re-elections."

Yes, they do understand this. And yet, they continue to come out in droves for Obama. Even ones in rural regions whose primary voters either will or already have gone for Hillary. Superdelegates care about this very, very much. And, in spite of your reasoning, they are choosing Obama instead, at a rate that increases every day. Why is this?

"The hard-working people of Appalachia and bluegrass country represent a nationwide constituency capable of delivering the White House in November. And for Clinton, even better: they will put her within striking distance of a popular vote lead."

Voters in Appalachia and bluegrass country absolutely deserve attention, and they will certainly receive it. Much moreso come the general election. But to say that they will put her within striking distance of the popular-vote lead overstates the likelihood of that happening and the importance of the popular vote, in this particular primary campaign. I know it is a truism among some in this race, particularly in the Hillary camp, that the popular vote is the most important metric in determining the nominee. Frequently, Al Gore's loss in 2000 is used to support this idea. But the fact is that the determination of the Democratic nominee for president is based on delegates, not popular vote. And anyone arguing for the relevance of states like West Virginia should understand why this is so. If the nomination was earned solely through popular vote, a candidate would have no incentive to visit a state like West Virginia -- because there aren't many voters there. That is why delegates are used instead. Delegates increase the value of smaller states.

If the whole point was to win a popular-vote margin, candidates would campaign in New York, California, Illinois, Florida, Texas, and any other state with a lot of voters. There would be no logical reason ever to visit West Virginia or South Dakota or Maine.

If the nomination race was based on anything besides delegate count, who knows what would have happened? The fact is that those were the rules everyone agreed upon beforehand (and for good reason), so to try to reimagine things now by using a different way to measure who the “true winner” or “better candidate” is would be following the fallacy of the predetermined outcome. You are simply saying that “if the rules had been different, clearly my opinion is right.” But by doing that, you ignore that what has happened, happened for a reason. If the rules had been different, it is completely logical that the outcome would be different, because the campaigns would have been run differently. At the bare minimum, you have no right to assume your opinion would inevitably be correct – you are choosing to reimagine things in a way that deliberately leads to the conclusion you have already committed to.

You cannot now insist that different rules should be followed, because even if the rules you now want had been in place at the start, that would have redefined the game from the beginning – so it would have been a different game altogether.

So how do you think I did? Do coloring books matter as much as vote totals? I know there are some other things I could have attacked, but I think I hit the big ones. I encourage all of you to go visit TexasDarlin's blog and comment.

Wait, no. Don't do that. Don't do that at all. I'm already ashamed I linked to her blog, and I'd hate to be responsible for bumping up her comment totals. Although, stupid is as stupid does, right? And stupid needs to be called stupid, so please go right ahead and use her comments section to call her stupid.

Top Five Unintentionally Gay Sports Photos*

Steroids have unforeseen consequences . . .

Chubbing up in front of his new receiver, Brady tries ever so casually to cover things up . . .

And stretch, and pull, and thrust, and stretch, and pull and thrust . . .

After finding the stick up his own ass, Coach Coughlin decided to try and shove it up Eli's.

Beltran's Houston teammates found his mole irresistable.

* (that I could find on the internet this morning)

Sanity Check

I have been trading e-mails with a few friends recently who question my support of Barack Obama (not questioning in a bad way, just exploring why I am supporting him as opposed to Clinton, McCain or someone else). Here at Wheeeeeres' Luke, we try to remain above the whimsical passions of election season, and endorse a candidate based only on solid foundational principles, not the mere fact that we like him because we picked him first (that's right fuckers, it was December of 2007, when Hillary was still picking furniture for the Oval Office ). But I guess it is possible that we are just as susceptible as the population at large to getting caught up in the excitement of one candidate -- and the loathing of another -- that we start jumping to the conclusion as a way of answering the question. In other words, does my (or our) support of the Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular stem from little more than the fact that I (and we) support the Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular? I don't think so, but it's good to make sure sometimes.

Democrats over Republicans. This should be pretty easy. There are some bad apples in the Democratic party as there are in the Republican party, but, as a rule, I think that a Democrat as president is more likely to appoint progressive judges (and not just to the Supreme Court, but to the Circuit Courts of Appeal, which people always overlook), I think a Democrat as president is more likely to fund social programs that reflect a more progressive agenda (maybe not progressive enough for all of us, see the Defense of Marriage Act and Bill Clinton's complete sell out of the gay community in 1996, but more progressive than a Republican president), and I think that a Democrat as president is more likely to work aggressively to find a way to get us out of Iraq than McCain would. Yep, that was pretty easy.

Obama vs. Hillary. As to why I prefer Obama specifically, I still think this should be a pretty easy call. First, he is not, and has never been, someone who panders to each tiny little micropopulation the way Hillary does. The gas tax nonsense is just one more example in a long line of politically-inspired rather than progressively-inspired ideas that she has championed. Hillary does not talk about fuel efficient cars when she is in Detroit, and she does not talk about gay rights when she is visiting a church in Georgia (side note: if you have time, the whole video, about 30 minutes, is worth it). Barack does. I honestly believe in my heart of hearts that Hillary wants to be President as an end in and of itself, and that he wants to be President to change the country. I have no idea if he can do it, but I am quite certain she cannot. Hillary's staunch ("defiant," according to the media outlets that like her) refusal to quit the race in the face of the overwhelming numbers lined up against her seems to further this conclusion: she is in this for herself, not her party or her country.

McCain v. Obama. The issue that everyone comes back to here is experience, but I think it is way, way overrated. What "experience" does Obama need that McCain has? It's not like Barack is going to accidentally nuke France (although . . ), and then just go "my bad, my bad . . . it's my first day." He has demonstrated an excellent command of key foreign policy issues, and he talks in measured tones about our interests around the world rather than spouting off idiotic and tautological platitudes like "they hate us for our freedom." Puke. McCain is a seasoned veteran of military issues, sure, but he himself has acknowledged that he doesn't understand our economy that well. Does that mean that McCain isn't qualified to be President? No, it just means he will have advisers on that issue and an array of others. Just like Obama would. America is too big to suggest that one person needs to have command of all of the issues in order to be president. The presidency, more and more, is about a platform of issues and ideas, and the president is a figurehead and spokesperson for those issues and ideas. Obama is as qualified as McCain (if not more so) to be that spokesperson, and the Democrats' issues and ideas are the ones that resonate so much more with me than Republican ones.

Ok, I guess the entire point of this post was to convince myself how right I am (we are) to support Obama and how wrong everyone else is. I suppose I could have kept that to myself.

Dogs behaving badly

I'm just gonna go right ahead and plagiarize the headline for this video I saw over at GorillaMask:

You know those old paintings of dogs playing poker? This video is just like that, except with more rape.

I really don't know where to begin with this thing. You can see a bunch of good questions over at Best Week Ever, but definitely watch the video first.




Oh, and I know the "dogs raping children -- funny?" tag doesn't apply perfectly, but it's still pretty odd that we already have a dog rape tag.

What I've Learned From Reading the New York Times

Maureen Dowd hates Hillary Clinton.

Is it just me (and MMG, who I know agrees with me), or is Maureen Dowd not viciously sexy? And her column is annoying recently, but that just kinda adds to it because now she's got that teetering on the edge, manipulative, other woman-hating, might snap at any time kinda thing.