Scattershot: Desultory Musings From Around College Football

After careful consideration, I realized that only a crazy person would attempt to replicate last week's Scattershot feature for both college and pro football (plus busy nights in other sports) every week, as evidenced by my work schedule preventing me from writing anything else between then and now, much less multiple features.  I hereby declare Scattershot to be college football only from here on out so I don't feel guilty when I can't keep up with more than that.  Now let's get to yesterday, a chaotic yet declarative affair wherein the national championship picture began, with alarming suddenness, to take on its first real vestiges of clarity.

Forgetting Bobby Petrino

I have to think the 2012 Razorbacks are the first team in history to deeply lament the absence of that scumbag-weasel-boy excuse for a coach.  He's a terrible human being entirely devoid of concepts like "morality" and "accountability", but the man knows how to run a college football program at a level that new coach John L. Smith simply can't fathom.  (Honestly, it must be tough to concentrate on little things like running practices and assembling game plans when you're broke.)  That guy's chair must be feeling pretty toasty 'round the hindquarters by now.  Last season, the Hogs were darkhorse SEC contenders.  This year has been a cavalcade of ever-escalating humiliations, the latest of which was yesterday's 35-26 loss to Rutgers.  Rutgers!!!  Sheesh.  And it's not like Arkansas played all that poorly.  Tyler Wilson threw for 419 yards and 3 TDs, though the two picks probably didn't help.  Really, 26 points ought to be enough for any SEC team (except the Wildcats) to dispatch a Big East opponent, but the Razorbacks were simply too disorganized defensively to hold it together.  Rutgers' offensive line for the day: 397 passing yards, 128 rushing yards, 5 TD, 0 turnovers, 39:02 time of possession.  Dear ACC, we'll trade you Arkansas and Kentucky for FSU and Virginia Tech.  Whaddaya say?  - SEC fans.  

Al Groh's Days Are Probably Numbered

Speaking of humiliating losses, defensive collapses, and hot seats, Georgia Tech's DC did himself no favors yesterday.  At home against Miami (FLA), the Jackets' defense played as pathetic and sloppy a game as Bobby Dodd Stadium has seen in quite some time.  In the interest of fairness, I'll exonerate Groh from one of the first-half touchdowns Tech allowed, the result of an extra 'Canes possession via Orwin Smith's inexcusable self-induced safety on a kickoff return.  It's tough for any defense to get a stop when they literally just left the field and have to go back out with zero rest.  However, the second-half disintegration perpetrated by the Jackets' D yesterday (not the first time such a thing has happened under Groh) was positively atrocious.  Tech had stormed back from a 19-0 deficit, scoring 36 unanswered points behind a stellar effort from Tevin Washington.  When your offense gives you that kind of performance, you have to stand up and reciprocate.  Instead, the Jackets coughed away the lead in the 4th quarter, allowing the tying score with a mere 0:27 left on the game clock.  Then Tech stalled out in OT and allowed The U to kick a field goal for the win.  Somebody has to be 42nd in the country in points allowed, but with their offense, Georgia Tech should be better.  Al Groh might want to spruce up his resume sometime soon.  I'm just saying.   

Breakout Player Of The Week

We learned last year that TCU quarterback Casey Pachall can sling it with the best of them.  Yesterday solidified the emergence of Pachall's most electrifying target, sophomore wideout Brandon Carter.  Carter had 5 catches for 128 yards and a touchdown against Virginia, lifting his season numbers to 20.7 yards per reception and 4 scores.  At 5'11" and 161 lbs, the young receiver probably needs to bulk up a little to play with more physical corners, but his sure hands and zippy athleticism portend good things in the future.    

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright ...

And by "burning bright" I mean "crystal football aspirations going down Hindenburg-style in a disastrous ball of flames."  Yesterday's iteration of the Big Stripey Cats Bowl pretty much obliterated LSU as a serious 2012 contender in my mind.  I know they're still undefeated, and they're still 3rd in the AP rankings, and they get 'Bama at home this year, but Les Miles' team showed zero evidence of being a top-flight program yesterday.  In fact, they looked downright pedestrian; possibly even below-average.  While they did indeed put another "W" up in the win-loss column, they had to eke out a "never should have been necessary" nail-biter fourth quarter to do it.  This against Auburn, whose sole victory this season came when they toppled that fearsome opponent known as Louisiana-Monroe.  By a field goal.  In overtime.  Yes, I wrote last week about how LA-Monroe has a sneaky-tough team this year, but to reiterate LSU's dubious position: The #2 team in the country barely beat a team that barely beat a team from the Sunbelt Conference.  Also, LSU put up a profoundly dismal 12 points against the 61st-ranked defense in the country.  It's early days yet, but I'm declaring the boys from the bayou D.O.A.  They are, dare I say it ... paper tigers.  (Sorry.  /hangs head in shame.  /stands in corner.)

Wait ... What?

I don't care what Aaron Murray, Denard Robinson, Matt Barkley, or anyone else does for the rest of the year, the Quarterback Single-Game Performance of 2012 Award belongs to Old Dominion's Taylor Heinicke.  The Division I record-setting outing for the sophomore QB was as follows: 55 of 79 (69.6 comp %) for 730 yards and 5 touchdowns.  I'm fairly certain no other signal caller will come close to topping that performance this year. 

Afwac.  AFWAC!!!!!

For the first half of yesterday's late game, it looked like Arizona might be poised to pull off a mammoth upset.  'Zona held Oregon's patented speed-freak option offense to just thirteen points through the initial 30 minutes of play, and appeared to be one big offensive possession from making a game of it.  Then the Ducks came out in the second half and did what they do best, sowing chaos and entropy among the opposing defense and generally exploding any normal sense of pace or context.  It was a prototypical Chip Kelly whiz-bang display, all stutter and flash and bright propulsion, and the Wildcats simply had no answer.  Hanging up 36 2nd-half points is something not many team can do, regardless of how weak the opponent.  When Oregon finds that extra, ludicrous gear, I'm not sure any team in the Pac 12 can stop them, including USC.  Early indicators point to an Oregon-Alabama title game.  Which reminds me ...

'Bama.
4-0.  Outscoring opponents 168-21.  Un.  Freaking.  Stoppable.  'Nuff said. 

Welcome Wagon

Missouri and Texas A&M migrated to the SEC this past off-season because they wanted more prestigious conference affiliations.  Thus far, both teams remain unranked and are 0-3 collectively against the conference.  This just how you pictured it, fellas?

Your Weekly Notre Dame and FSU Are Relevant Again! Update

The #10 Irish completed a sweep of Great Lakes State teams, knocking off the Wolverines 13-6 in a defensive-minded tilt in South Bend. 

The #4 'Noles, meanwhile, survived an early 14-0 deficit to prevail in an offensive shootout with Clemson, 49-37. 

Both teams are undefeated and in the Top 10.  

Tattoo U 

Ohio State is 4-0 and nobody cares.  

Upset Of The Week

Kansas Sate pulled a "Trading Places" routine by taking out Oklahoma, moving from #15 to #7 in the AP Poll, while the Sooners tumble from #6 to #16 as a result of the loss.  Oklahoma looked poised to sneak into the national title mix with a few breaks, but they'll be lucky now if they can sniff the Big 12 Championship game.  Meanwhile, K-State have set themselves up to build on last year's superb showing.  If the 'Cats can take care of business against the surprising number of ranked teams left on their schedule, they can start building a mini-dynasty within their conference, and mayyybbbbee on a grander stage if some improbable things fall in their favor.    

OK, I'm wrapping this up to devote my full attention to the Falcons game.  Happy Sunday!

Scattershot, Sunday Edition: Desultory Musings From Around College Football

I'm uncorking a new feature here at Arena Apothecary called "Scattershot."  As often as possible, I'll present a varied, wide-ranging list of thoughts and opinions whenever a big day happens in a given sport.  (No promises, but I'll try to get one up every Sunday for college ball, every Tuesday for the NFL, and any morning after a big night of MLB or NBA action.)  This is the inaugural edition.  Enjoy.  

Well, No One Saw THAT Coming ... Except All Of Us.  

There were a lot of whuppin's put on inferior competition by the big boys this weekend, but one in particular stands out.  Alabama's 52-0 deconstruction of Arkansas wasn't exactly unexpected, it was just a grim spectacle and a letdown.  Before the season, everyone had this circled as a pivotal game, Arkansas being the only team in the SEC West remotely capable of upending the 'Bama/LSU power dyad.  The Hogs were ranked #8 in the polls heading into last week's ostensible gimme game against Louisiana-Monroe, setting up what should have been a top-10 match-up yesterday.  Then Tyler Wilson suffered a serious concussion, the Razorbacks faltered, and the Warhawks pulled off a stunner victory in OT that sent Arkansas tumbling all the way out of the AP Top 25.  (By the way, anybody with LA-Monroe on their schedule for the remainder of the year probably shouldn't sleep on them, as they nearly replicated last week's upset yesterday against Auburn.)  With Wilson still not medically cleared to play and Arkansas still reeling from Bobby Petrino's sudden and ignominious departure, the Hogs went from the role of darkhorse SEC contender to potential spoiler to chaff for Nick Saban's grist mill in record time.  Barring something truly outlandish, the Tide will roll unchecked right into November 3rd's showdown with LSU, where once again the SEC West Champion will be crowned. 

Resurgence.  

A hearty and heartfelt "welcome back!" to FSU and Notre Dame.  As someone who grew up in an era when the 'Noles were a dominant force and the annual Florida-FSU battle often carried National Championship implications, I am of the opinion that football is more enjoyable when FSU is good.  And so it warms my heart to see the team from Tallahassee prominently ranked in the polls again.  Granted, their schedule has been front-loaded with the squishiest baking tray full of cupcakes imaginable (Murray State, Savannah State, and Wake Forest), but they've done exactly what a dominant team is supposed to do, outscoring their opponents 176 to 3.

As for the Irish, it looks like this may finally be the year when all the predictably grating "is Notre Dame back this season?" chatter is answered in the affirmative.  Brian Kelly's team strolled into East Lansing and put a 20-3 beatdown on #10 Michigan State yesterday to stay undefeated on the year.  The Irish do have some formidable challenges left on their schedule, but they appear up to the task, playing with a poise and balance heretofore absent in recent memory.  If Notre Dame is still going strong when they meet the fifth-ranked Sooners on October 27 (quite possible), I'll be ready to buy in.  As with FSU, college football is better when the Irish are legitimately in the discussion.

Let's Talk About USC.     

In case you're utterly oblivious, Standford pulled off the upset of the week, defeating the vaunted USC Trojans 21-14.  Here in Atlanta, one of the personalities on AM 680's "Rude Awakening" morning sports show is a fellow named Perry Laurentino.  Perry is a Steelers fan from Scarsdale, NY (read: band-wagoning douche with no sense of geographical loyalty) and a proud USC alum (read: insufferable douche with no sense of reality.)  He is also among the most sanctimonious and enervating people ever to blemish the airwaves, and as far as I can tell he knows nothing whatsoever about sports.  Basically, he's Colin Cowherd with a Bronx accent but (mercifully) without the national exposure.  Anyway, since right around July, which is when we start discussing the upcoming college football season in Georgia, Perry has trumpeted two semi-related proclamations at every available opportunity: that USC will end the SEC's run of consecutive crystal footballs this season, and that pretty much everyone in the rest of the country will be overjoyed by this development.  As to the former, the Trojans spent last night getting manhandled in the trenches on both sides of the ball by freaking Stanford.  (They are now ranked #13 nationally and sit at the bottom of the Pac-12 South.)  Care to hazard a guess how they'd fare against LSU or even Georgia?  Regarding the latter, it's been my experience that much of the rest of the country doesn't care all that much about the SEC dominating college football.  Oh, I'm sorry, does "rest of the country" translate into "the Pac-12 plus Boise State" in your vocabulary?  In that case, and only that case, you're correct.  But you don't hear Texas or Ohio State bitching about SEC bias.  They know the way to assert themselves is to go out and win games, and they don't sit around whining about the rankings otherwise.

(Programming note for David Dickey and the 680 brass: I deeply enjoy listening to Rude, Sandra, Leo, and B-Finn.  Please stop ruining my morning commute and get this a-hole off the air.  Thanks.)

California Love.


Don't look now, but there's another team in Los Angeles, and they're playing damned good football so far.  UCLA is 3-0, including a win over (#16 at the time) Nebraska in week 2 that vaulted them into the AP Top 25.  They're fifth in the country in rushing, and they've outscored opponents by an average of 20 points per game this year.  No, I don't think the Bruins are serious contenders, maybe not even in the Pac-12, but they look a far cry from the 6-8 doormat we watched last season.  Keep an eye on Jim Mora's squad, your best bet for a conference darkhorse/spoiler out west. 


Coming To A Conference Near You.

Like Nuke LaLoosh, Pitt apparently wanted to announce their presence with authority.  (Albeit more successfully than ol' Nuke.)  In a preview of their move to the ACC in 2013, the Panthers lowered the boom on perennial conference power Virgina Tech, bludgeoning the Hokies 35-17.  Frank Beamer's traditional calling card of tight defensive execution was simply not in evidence, as Pitt QB Tino Sunseri threw for 283 yards and 3 TDs, and the ground game added 254 yards and 2 more scores for good measure.  Pitt's defense, too, looked fairly stifling, chalked full of energy and aggression.  Paul Chryst's stint as the Panthers' head coach was off to an abysmal 0-2 start, but if yesterday's display was any indication, the ACC will have a serious new contender in the Coastal Division next year.   

Peach State Problems.

Though both Georgia and Georgia Tech won their games yesterday, they have to be just a tad worried on the defensive side of the ball going forward.  The 'Dawgs and 'Jackets coughed up 20 apiece to Florida Atlantic and Virginia, respectively.  Allowing clearly inferior teams such a generous helping of points may not have posed any real danger this week, but it could potentially be disastrous when they run into real competition.  On October 6, UGA will clash with South Carolina and Tech will meet Clemson, both on the road.  If they don't get their defensive houses in order, it will make those already-heavy games very difficult to win indeed.  (Yes, I know Georgia was missing several key defensive starters that they should have back by then, but even the second stringers shouldn't have let the lowly Owls hang twenty on 'em.)

It Didn't Matter, But ...

For a game with absolutely no implications for anyone outside of the schools involved, one of the most compelling and entertaining contests of the weekend came via a shootout twixt a pair of basketball powerhouses.  Just watch these highlights from UNC vs. Louisville, it's good stuff:

Bring It On Home To Me.



West Virginia is 2nd in the nation is passing yards per game (386) and fourth in points (55.5).  Sure, the defense is suspect, but with their relatively navigable schedule and a few (monstrously lucky) breaks, they could be right in the mix come December.  Just something to keep in mind.  P.S. - scheduling people, can we get these guys to play Oregon sometime soon?  Just think of the joy inherent in watching those two offenses trade punches.  Get back to me.

Enjoy the NFL games, and I'll hopefully see you Tuesday.  Thanks for reading. 

Asleep At The Switch

On June 9th, I got to Turner Field very, very early.  This wasn't just some random day game, after all.  You can meander down to The Ted any home-game afternoon and have a fine time marinating in Budweiser and peanut shells and scorching Georgia sunshine.  This day was different, special.  This was Sid Bream Bobblehead Giveaway Day, and I'd be damned if I wasn't one of the first 20,000 through the gates fortunate enough to claim one.  Just look at that majestic representation of one of the most iconic moments in Atlanta sports history.  It's a thing of beauty.

"The Slide" took place 20 years ago this October, when the National League's power structure looked an awful lot like it does now.  By record, the five best NL Teams in 1992 were the Braves, Pirates, Reds, Cardinals, and Expos.  If you take the Nationals to be a metaphysical continuation of the 'Spos,which to a degree they are, then things haven't changed much.  (Or rather, they've changed a great deal and then changed back.)  Granted, it's not a perfect analogy.  The following things are different than they were in 1992: the Dodgers and Giants are also formidable contenders this season, which was not at all the case back then.  The advent of the Central Division and subsequent team realignment has resolved the cartographic farce of the Braves somehow belonging to the NL West.  Oh, and none of the '92 players are still active.  (I checked, Jamie Moyer didn't pitch a single game in the majors during the '92 season.) 


Not only did I get that sweet bobblehead on that Saturday back in June, I got the rosy feeling that comes from watching your team play excellent baseball.  That was back when Atlanta was only a game back of the Nats in the NL East; when Michael Bourn was raking; when Brandon Beachy and Jair Jurrjens were in the rotation; when the Braves looked great.  Things look a little less rosy today.  After muddling through a mini-swoon through the second half of August, the Braves came out smoking like a Craig Kimbrel fastball in September ... or so the record said.  The team took 9 of its first 11 games this month including five straight, and everyone in the ATL breathed a collective sigh of relief.  Maybe we wouldn't catch Washington in the divisional race, but we were going to the postseason without a hitch.  There would be no repeat of the long, precipitous decline that capped last year's campaign in agonizing fashion.  Not this year, not this team.  This team had an identity.  This team had a deep and healthy bullpen.  This team had a shot at a lengthy October run.  The problem is that the swoon never really ended.

Atlanta's offense can also be added to the list of things that are different than they were in 1992.

 From the 1st to the 13th of September that season, the Braves scored 76 runs and allowed 48.  In that same date span this year, they've scored 37 runs and allowed 41.  This month, Atlanta has been collectively outscored by a pair of teams struggling to remain relevant in the wild card race (Phils, Brewers) and a pair of teams who barely qualify as big-league clubs at all (Rockies, Mets).  Aside from an 11-run outburst against New York on the 8th, the Braves have failed to put up more than three runs in a game for ten days, and that against some of the lowliest pitching in baseball, no less.  On the year, the team OPS has been a very respectable .718.  This month it's .643.  And I don't even want to contemplate our Stranded RISP rate, which has been truly atrocious since the proverbial calender page turned. Calling the recent offensive production anemic is doing a disservice to anemia.  The Braves don't lack red blood cells, they lack blood period.  They lack life.  This team is sleepwalking through the deep stretch drive, and the situation will become untenable if they don't wake up soon.

It's not that we're headed for another closing-day loss meltdown.  I hope.  It would be almost impossible to drop out of both wild card spots with so few games left.  I hope.  (Although we said much the same last year at the beginning of the month.)  It goes back to the well-worn concept of being hot at the right time.  Two weeks ago, the Braves were scorching and looked ready to roll into the playoffs firing on all cylinders.  Now, the bats are doing a convincing rendition of John Cage's "4:33" and the pitching is coughing up five-run innings every other game.  Staggering into the postseason in a collective torpor is rarely the recipe for success.

For that reason, tonight feels big.  Back in the Ted after a discouraging road trip.  Against the upstart Nationals, a team we'll likely have to battle again in the postseason.  Against Ross Detwiler, who has semi-owned some of Atlanta's premier players this season, to the extent that Fredi Gonzalez is sitting Michael Bourn and Brian McCann tonight because they just can't seem to hit the guy.  And against the tide of inertia and entropy that has enveloped the team of late.  If we can't swim (or at least doggy paddle with gusto) in this game and the ensuing series, it's going to be sink, undertow, and out to harsher waters right quick.

This is it, boys.  Time to flip the switch.  Play ball.  

  

Fantasy Etiquette: 5 Barroom Rules.

It's that time of year.  Football, and its fantasy counterpart, are officially underway, and thus begins another season of mostly reasonable people turning into obsessive sociopaths because Roddy White didn't get as many targets as they hoped last week.  There are a myriad of podcasts and message boards and the KSK mailbag just churning out an endless slew of fantasy advice.  Matthew Berry is ubiquitous, God help us all. 

This is all more or less fine by me.  Personally, I've never felt any urge whatsoever to engage in fantasy sports.  I'm perfectly content watching and analyzing the games on their intrinsic merits, and I don't want or need any additional context to clutter that experience.  Also, and I often wonder how people live with themselves in these cases, I don't ever want to be in the position of rooting for a player I hate simply because he was the best guy on the board when my pick came around in a fantasy draft.  Drew Brees is one of the three best QB's in football, but he also plays for the Saints, the Falcons' most bitter rivals and divisional foes.  If he's on the board while I'm drafting, I'm a certified idiot not to take him, right?  But here's the thing: I don't want Drew Brees to have a successful season.  Ever.  I want him and the Saints to falter and flail and be ultimately lousy, every year, forever, amen.  Fantasy poses the risk of conflicting with my sacred duty as a fan to despise all those opposed to my team; of diluting my inalienable hatred.  And lord knows we can't have that.  So yeah, no fantasy for me.  But I do understand and appreciate the appeal.  You get to play GM and muck around with rosters and, if everything goes right, pick up a heap of bragging rights and some cash to boot.  And it probably does lend a little gravitas to the random Vikings-Bucs game that no one outside of Minneapolis or Tampa Bay cares even an iota about if you have someone from either team on your roster.  I'm all for people enjoying anything having to do with football.  But.

BUT.

Fantasy owners of America, we need to have a little chat.  We need to establish some ground rules so that I can be around you, on gameday, in public, and not want to beat you senseless.  (Ed. Note: if you are someone who plays fantasy without going full-bore psycho about it, feel free to stop reading and go tinker with your starting roster for today.) 

Because every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday of the season, there are those among you who ruin sports bars across the land by insinuating a grating and wholly unnecessary dosage of fantasy into the proceedings.  Frankly, when your fake team's considerations become more meaningful and enjoyable than the actual games themselves, your priorities are way the hell out of whack.  Shady McCoy fumbles or the Colts' D gives up 4 touchdowns and it's a freaking zombie apocalypse for that drunk guy in the corner who is actually a Steelers fan.  People who have no connection whatsoever to the Ravens other than getting stuck with Joe Flacco as a fantasy quarterback suddenly become blithering, outraged idiots when Torrey Smith drops a pass.  The bar turns into a cacophony of cheers, profanities, and outright pandemonium as MJD saves one person's fantasy week, ruins someone else's, and the one Jags fan in the joint stares sullenly into his drink, contemplating the futility of existence.  I can't take it anymore.  Here are some fantasy-related behaviors that should be outlawed, in perpetuity, from occurring in bars. 

1. Laptop usage.  If you want to whip out your iPhone and check your stats for the day while a play is under review, or because you need to make a last-minute roster alteration, fine.  If, however, you spend more time glaring at your laptop and frantically refreshing the results of your nine leagues than you do watching actual, real, glorious football, you should be evicted from the premises immediately.  We are here to get gregariously drunk with friends and scream at 56" TV screens, not get antisocially drunk alone and stare at a 12" Dell Powerbook. It's a bar, not a f***** coffee shop.  Put the computers away.

2.  Appropriate Reactions and Decibel Levels.  Histrionics, be they celebratory or agonizing, are reserved for fans and their teams, not your handcuff fantasy back.  You know the axiom that nobody wants to hear about your fantasy team?  That's not just a gentle reminder not to bring it up in regular conversation; it applies to the barroom as well.  If your real, actual team blows a fourth-quarter lead in week 12 against a divisional opponent, you may pound your fist on the bar, scream obscenities, flip tables, smash glasses, immediately knock back five shots of vodka, or indulge in any other acceptable expression of grief and anger that occurs to you.  Likewise if they just broke off a 70-yard TD run, only, you know, you'll be much more gleeful while you break things.  Good on you.  HOWEVA, if you're wearing a Mark Sanchez jersey and a Jets cap, do not yell at the TV if Jay Cutler takes a sack.  Glower into your beer, mumble a silent curse to the gods, whatever, but keep your fantasy whining to yourself.  NO ONE CARES.

3.  Discussion of stats shall be limited to real stats.  If you want to talk about how many rushing yards the Broncos' defense allowed last year or the Tom Brady's red zone completion percentage, by all means, let's nerd it out.  However, I don't care if a receiver's value is diminished because you are or are not in a PPR league.  Any fantasy statistic that has no relation (or only an oblique relation) to what actually transpires on the field is not fit for discussion.

4.  These players don't owe you jack.  Nor, for that matter, do their coaches.  If the Texans give Ben Tate a goal-line carry instead of Arian Foster, thereby costing you precious fantasy points, guess what?  THEY'RE PLAYING TO WIN THE GAME.  They are making what they think are the best tactical decisions for their teams.  (Note: questionable if Andy Reed or Norv Turner is involved.)  When MJD sat down on the goal line a few seasons ago to keep the clock running a seal a win for the Jags, he apologized to his fantasy owners.  This was endearing and funny and totally unnecessary.  He made a heads-up play and put his team in the best position to win.  That cost you fantasy points?  Boo freaking hoo.  They're trying to put real points on a real scoreboard and make sure they have more than the other team at the end of the day.  It's bad enough how pathologically attached and entitled we are over our hometown teams, I have to draw the line at pathological entitlement in fantasy.  It's ridiculous.

5.  When in doubt, shut up.  Self-explanatory, right?  Good.

Happy football!!!

To Pitch Or Not To Pitch?

Sometime in mid- or late September, the Washington Nationals are going to shut Stephen Strasburg down for the remainder of the season.  At that point, the team that currently holds baseball's best record will voluntarily shelve its best starting pitcher while standing on the brink of the playoffs (barring a 2011-Red-Sox-ian collapse, of course).  Since no team has ever done anything like this before in sports history, and since D.C. baseball fans have been among the most consistently abused people in sports history*, the question of whether the "right decision" is being made has become much more incendiary and vitriolic than a normal hot-button sports argument.  The Nats' fans (and some players) are furious, the Nats' brass are standing pat, and the rest of us are either vehemently arguing one side or the other or simply scratching our heads at the whole thing. 

It's been said that the line between genius and insanity is often gossamer thin.  There have certainly been notable past instances of courageous innovation and full-blown lunacy being two sides of a singular coin, as Picasso or Mozart would attest if they weren't, you know, centuries dead.  In fact, unorthodox thought is often perceived as madness until hindsight shows us otherwise.  So, what will history show us about Washington deactivating one of the game's elite pitchers on the doorstep of the city's first postseason appearance since 1933?

As Jayson Stark's cover-all-the-angles article noted last week, medically, we simply can't know.  There is no predicting the effects of a season-ending shutdown versus skipping a start here and there verses 15 or 30 days of rest now and reactivation when things get serious next month versus letting Strasburg continue to pitch as he has all year.  Each body reacts differently to Tommy John surgery and recovery therefrom, and past outcomes have been varied enough that a definitively correct medical course of action cannot be identified.  The Nats are apparently erring, in the most dramatic way possible, on the side of caution.  That a team would be so bold and far-sighted as to place the long-term health of a player above more pressing and immediate concerns, even in the face of so much averse reaction from fans, is its own form of courage.  And in a weird way, it is commendable.

This is no little thing the Nationals are doing, or at least have assured us that they will do.  It flies in the face of conventional wisdom, of putting your best possible team on the field, and some might even say the spirit of baseball or sports in general.  In the name of protecting the future, the team is voluntarily rendering itself less competitive, less likely to win in the present, in a season where they have a legitimate shot at a World Series title.  That's some Big Picture Thinking accompanied by a pair of Big Brass Ones.  It's certainly breaking new ground.

But here's the thing, and somebody probably ought to have told Mike Rizzo this at some point:

Winning a World Series is extraordinarily, phenomenally hard.

Ask any fan, sports journalist, broadcaster, player, or coach.  The sheer amount of factors that have to align for a specific team to plaster a locker room in champagne in October is staggering.  Team health, luck, fate, coaching decisions, umpiring calls, and usually at least one purely miraculous act have to not only be involved, but be involved in the correct sequence.  Trust a Braves fan here: my team had the best rotation in baseball for a solid decade and 14 straight division titles, and they captured exactly one World Series title.  They could have, and probably should have, had more.  But there are just too many things at play over 162 games and the playoffs.  Too much can go wrong; fate is too capricious. A Kent Hrbek/Ron Gant call here, a faulty Bobby Cox pitching change there, or a plain old "it just wasn't our year" moment, like running into that buzz saw of a Yankees team in '99.  There are literally infinite variables, some so minute that you only notice them in retrospect, that can derail a team's road to a championship.  In other words, people are asking the wrong question.

The question is not: is this a wise decision for the future of Stephen Strasburg's career, and by extension, the Nationals organization?  The question is: when staring at lightning in a bottle, when everything is clicking for your team, when you have momentum and chemistry and all those other intangibles on your side, and they are in evidence on a daily basis in the Win column, how can you resign yourself to anything less than a full-on assault at the trophy?  The Nats are in the middle of a charmed season, and they are prepared to throw it away because they believe there are many more in store.  [Ed. note: as a Braves fan, I am absolutely not complaining about this.]  Problem is, baseball almost never works like that. 

Stephen Strasburg may never miss another start for the rest of his career.  Fine, but what happens if Bryce Harper goes down with a broken tibia next July and the heart of your order can't get along against elite pitching without him?  Or if Gio Gonzalez never comes close to replicating his stellar 2012 season again.  Or if the bullpen falls apart?  If, if, if.  That two-letter word isn't worth much in Scrabble, but it's everything in baseball, and Washington is banking on several ifs, for years to come, coming out in their favor.

The odds of that happening are stacked heavily against them.  That's why you don't look gift horses in the mouth.  That's why you don't ignore lightning in a bottle.  That's why you let transcendent talent keep taking the mound.  You just never know. 

*It's true.  We think that, say, Sonics fans have it bad, but Washington has had its baseball team taken away TWICE.  The original Senators franchise had a proud history including Hall Of Famers like Walter Johnson and Goose Goslin, and were the 1924 World Series champs.  They mostly faired poorly in the '30s and '40s, but following the 1954 signing of Harmon Killebrew, their fortunes looked to be improving.  Killebrew led the league with 42 homers and made his first of 11 consecutive All-Star teams in 1959 ... and then the team was shipped to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961.  The expansion/replacement "new" Senators were objectively terrible, averaging 90 losses a season from 1961 to 1971 ... and then they moved to Texas to become the Rangers.  Lacking a baseball team from 1971-2005, D.C. fans were forced by default to root for the Baltimore Orioles.  Aside from the '83 World Series and the privilege of watching Cal Ripken Jr.'s incredible career unfold, this was a pretty miserable proposition for most of those years.  And of course, when the city did get the Nats in '05, they were awful and have been right up until pretty much this year.  That's a lot of losing, both in the W/L column and in the ignominy of having your team taken away two times in a decade. 

Dwight Howard, The Lakers, and Radiohead.

There's been a bit of a gap between posts here at Arena Apothecary.  I should be resuming business as usual with something enjoyable and inspirational about the Olympics.  I should be writing about Gabby Douglas or Usain Bolt or Andy Murray.  I should be showering the page with an account of watching on adjacent TVs yesterday while the women's water polo and soccer teams played sublime gold medal games for the USA.  But ... that's not going to happen.  Instead, I need to talk about Dwight Howard and the trade that gifted the Lakers with an ungodly windfall yesterday.  I won't waste time excoriating the Magic for muddling their way to an infuriatingly lopsided deal; plenty of other people will take care of that, and it's so glaringly obvious that it hardly bears stating, much less repeating.*  No, what I want to address is how this makes me feel about the Lakers' 2012-13 season.  And to do that, I need to talk about Radiohead.  I know, I know, but it will all make sense in a few paragraphs, just hang on a moment.

I don't like Radiohead.  I've said as much a million times, and it's always greeted with the same combination of perplexity and disgust from fellow musicians and music fans.  How is it, they wonder, that one of the most daring, intelligent, and groundbreaking groups of the past 20 years has earned the unadulterated scorn of someone who loves music this much?  It's not an easy question to answer.  Certainly, there is much to admire in the band's oeuvre.  Jonny Greenwood is a sonic architect and compositional genius nonpareil.  His brother Colin is a wonderful bassist, and Ed O'Brien is a pretty good guitar player.  Phil Selway, like Ringo Starr before him, goes largely unappreciated for his restrained genius and perfect craftsmanship behind the drums.  When I listen to the band, I digest all of these elements with a great deal of interest, taking in the extraordinary subtlety and detail of their musical interplay.  It's complex, fascinating stuff that I appreciate academically but from which I glean almost no actual enjoyment.  (And this is coming from a guy who digs serialism, abstract soundscapes, and free jazz.)  The sad thing is that, based on what I just wrote, I should adore Radiohead.  But I really, really don't.  And what wrecks the whole thing for me is Thom Yorke.

You can call him anything you want; genius, visionary, whatever.  To me, he's a grating, self-absorbed, pretentious megalomaniac whose considerable talents I would probably appreciate if he weren't such a monumental dick about the whole business.  That falsetto-singing, eyes-closed-swaying doofus is not some shamanic icon making transcendent art.  He's just annoying as f***.  Again, this is just my opinion, but Thom Yorke ruins Radiohead.

Which is why I'm going to hate this Lakers team, even more than I usually hate the Lakers.** 

After I got over the initial cringe-shock of the Steve Nash signing, I was actually incredibly excited to watch them.  There was the fascinating question of how Nash and Kobe Bryant would function as a backcourt.  There was the prospect of that pairing collectively saving enough of what each has left in the tank to make a last sustained run, possibly leading to a title or two.  The upshot of that, of course, would be renewed intrigue and debate over Kobe's place in the pantheon and (finally!!!) well-deserved rings for Nash, which should make you exuberant regardless of what uniform he's wearing when it happens.  And if your brain wasn't reverberant with giddiness at the thought of Nash and Pao Gasol wreaking absolute havoc on opposing defenses, then you just plain don't like basketball.  On the whole, there was a lot of joy to be mined here.

Then the Lakers went out and brokered a deal that divested them of a talented-headcase big man in Andrew Bynum for a much more talented headcase who happens to fit their needs perfectly.  That they miraculously retained Gasol in the bargain means that their starting five next season will include, barring something catastrophic happening, four future Hall Of Famers.  On paper, this is automatically the most fascinating and exciting team of 2012; just an absolute joy to watch.

The problem, of course, is that Dwight Howard just spent the last year and change doing his best Thom Yorke impersonation.  He has been, without a hint of shame or remorse, the most insufferably petulant and clueless sham of a human being in sports.  The unblinking ego and delusion were staggering.  The comparison was inevitably made, but Howard's actions were so far removed from The Decision that conflating the two makes zero sense.  When LeBron took his talents to South Beach, it was poorly executed, but at least it was honest.  This, on the other hand, was a deliberate series of head-fake shenanigans designed to, what?  Get Dwight out of Orlando while somehow blaming the whole thing on Otis Smith and Stan Van Gundy?  Maintain his heretofore unblemished image as a likeable guy in a bad situation?  Quick, look over there!  Pay no attention to the duplicitous idiot behind the curtain!  Good lord what a dope.

And now he's playing on the most loaded team in the western conference; a team perfectly calibrated to his strengths in a city that won't care a jot about his innate douchery because, you know, it's L.A. and they're used to embracing that sort of person.  The situation rankles in the rich-getting-richer way that these things do, but Mitch Kupchak played this one smart and you'd want your GM to do the same.  That the Lakers are the beneficiaries of a nearly exact case of historical repetition doesn't matter.  That Howard should benefit in any way from his behavior is downright abhorrent. 

The Lakers are going to play a lot of great basketball next season.  Steve Nash has just been handed an entire Christmas tree's worth of new toys, and he's going to use that team like Miles Davis used the Seven Steps to Heaven quintet.  Kobe will have an easier time on both ends of the floor, able to take  offensive possessions off while Nash does his thing and relax on defense knowing he has the Frontline of Doom backing him up.  Even Ron Artest, a pale shadow of himself, is going to get ample opportunities to use his one remaining viable NBA skill: standing wide open in the corner and knocking down threes.  Even if their bench is paper thin, they're one fluky Oklahoma City injury away from a legitimate shot at cracking 70 wins.  And Dwight Howard will be there, enjoying the ride, tossing up 23-15's, basking in the L.A. sunshine in the day and the Staples Center limelight at night.  It's enough to make a grown man weep with disgust.

Don't hate the game.  Hate the player.   


*As a Hawks fan, I was ecstatic when Danny Ferry waltzed into Atlanta and immediately performed the jaw-dropping voodoo of jettisoning Joe Johnson's contract.  We were glad to see him go for many reasons: he was openly derisive of fans and media, he had a penchant for way too much iso-ball, and there was no way we were getting out of the second round of the playoffs with him as our best player.  But you know what?  All the griping and invective leveled at him over that contract was horribly misplaced.  Say you're a car mechanic.  You excel at your job, but you're not quite qualified to work on Maybachs or act as a NASCAR crew chief.  Inexplicably, someone offers you $5,000,000 a year to keep servicing Fords and Hondas like you've always done.  You're not turning that down just because you're not actually actually worth the money.  Atlanta was dumb enough to give him the offer, and he took it.  You can't fault a man for that.  In the same way, no matter how unfair the Dwight-Lakers trade seems, you can't really be upset that they took the deal when it was offered.  The way I see it, this is Karma smacking David Stern in the mouth for "basketball reasons."


**I use "hate" loosely, obviously.  Non-L.A.-dwelling hoops fans hate the Lakers the same way baseball fans who don't live in New York hate the Yankees.  We resent their dominance and abhor their obnoxious fans, but generally we can objectively appreciate their performance on the field/court.

Scoreboard, Dude! ... But Not Really.

Among the many elements that make following sports such a joy is the potential of seemingly winnable barroom arguments.  Sure, there are plenty of other milieus rife with debatable questions; "who's the greatest band/actress/writer/painter/U.S. President ever?"  "Is The Godfather or Goodfellas a better movie?"  And so forth.  You can argue about anything as long as you have a contradictory position to argue against.  The thing that sets sports apart is the illusion that an argument can actually be definitively resolved.  (Hence my carefully applied "seemingly winnable" above.)  We think we can "win" sports arguments for the simple reason that success in sports is quantifiable in a manner that it simply is not elsewhere.  An obvious and admittedly dumb example: Tom Clancy has outsold, by vast orders of magnitude, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, and probably (though there's no real way to verify this) Shakespeare.  This is great for his bank account, but it certainly does not make him a better writer than those people.  More importantly, nobody would ever argue that it did.  You don't judge artistic achievement on gross earnings or units sold.  Because of the vastness of scope and complexity of process involved in creation, artistic talent cannot be graphed, calculated, or linear regression'd.  Athletic talent, though?  We have numbers out the yang for that stuff.   The problem and great trap of arguing sports is when we give those numbers undue weight.  Numbers can be spun.  Numbers can be ripped from their initial context and retrofitted to an entirely different one.  Numbers can talk at cross purposes from each other.   Numbers never, ever tell the whole story.  Which is to say: No.  No, Bob Costas, Ryan Seacrest, Meredith Vieira, Hoda whateverthehellyourlastnameis, and other assorted NBC broadcast "personalities."  Michael Phelps is not the greatest Olympian of all time. 

Mind you, I am absolutely not trying to belittle Phelps' accomplishments.  After last night, the man owns more medals than anyone else in Olympic history, and also to the most gold medals (15) and individual medals (9) of all time.  The acme he reached in Beijing was nothing short of incredible.  Certainly, he is in the GOOAT discussion ... but I don't believe for a second he deserves that moniker. 

First, it's not a given that he's even the greatest Olympic swimmer ever.  Everyone knows that Phelps broke Mark Spitz's record for gold medals in a single Olympics when he won eight in Beijing.  Well and good, but Spitz racked up seven golds in Munich in 1972 while simultaneously shattering the world record for every single one of those events in the process.  Read that sentence again.  I would argue that Spitz's defining Olympic Games were actually the more impressive feat.  Of course, here's where people shout that Phelps has more than doubled the medal count of his predecessor.  It's a point that must be taken into consideration, but apply it to other sports for a moment.  Can you tell me definitively that Joe Montana was a better quarterback than John Elway because he won more rings?  No, you can't.  Hell, Bill Russell has eleven NBA Championships and Michael Jordan has six, but go find me one person other than Tommy Heinsohn who honestly thinks Russell was actually better at basketball.  When you factor in all the medical, dietary, and training advances since Spitz's time that might have allowed him to extend his career and accrue more trips to the podium had he been privy to them, you simply cannot make an immutable statement of fact that Phelps is better than Spitz.

But let's assume that he is.  Greatest Olympic Swimmer of All Time status: hypothetically granted.  Now we enter the broader field of competition.  Jesse Owens.  Carl Lewis.  Jim Thorpe.  Jackie Joyner-Kersee.  Flo-Jo.  Mary Lou Retton.  Domonique Dawes.  You get the idea, and you'll note that I haven't even touched the Winter Olympics, as that would just muddy the waters beyond recovery.  The question is how one defines "greatest" when discussing an athletic gathering that spans every conceivable skill and facet of sport.  Can you, in any meaningful sense, compare swimming to track-and-field, gymnastics, or any other sport?  How?  Aside from medal tallies, there's no real systematic way, right?  If medals are all we have to go by, then Phelps is the de facto big dawg.  But here's the thing: you also must consider context, and here's where Phelps' case starts to tarnish.

Swimming offers the most opportunities of any sport to earn medals.  There are more events in which players can compete, and thus more chances to stand on the podium, so it's not entirely fair to use the "most medals" argument, since other spots don't afford the same number of shots to their athletes.  Also, because of the low-impact nature on muscles and joints relative to sprinting or a floor exercise, the athletes can perform at an elite level far longer than in other Olympic sports.  When you only get a chance to compete once every four years, the importance of career longevity becomes even more pronounced. 

(Gymnasts, as a rule, experience only one Olympics at their physical peak, maaaayyyybbeeee two if their bodies cooperate and the young guns coming up don't bump them out of one of the precious few spots on the team.  While track-and-field athletes can do well in certain events like the long jump over many years, their ability to viably compete in, say, the 100 m dissipates after two Summer Games tops, limiting their opportunities to win more medals in a way that swimmers don't have to deal with.)   
That's the logistical argument for at least attenuating the "OMG MEDALZZZZ" concept to account for the swimming's unique advantages.  Here, and this really is the crux for me, is where we discuss that favorite bell cow of Mel Kiper and Chad Ford: intangibles.  Aren't the Olympics supposed to be about more than just the end result?  I'm not talking about the pap and "great story lines" that NBC crams down our throats every four years, that stuff is just grating, but there is a higher ideal here, right?  Even in the cynicism-drenched modern era where sports are engineering vehicles for endorsement deals and future reality show careers, the Olympics still give us something compelling; not just because of what these athletes do but the circumstances in which they do it.  Call me a sap if you must, but the what they represent matters, if only because we still harbor a deep emotional attachment to that notion, even if it's long gone in reality.  That's where Michael Phelps falls short.  He doesn't feel Olympian, in the true and ancient sense of the word.  

Can you tell me that Phelps is a better Olympian than Jesse Owens was?  Owens walked into a Hitler-governed Berlin in 1936 as an African American competing in an Olympics that was specifically engineered by the host nation's media to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryan race.  He walked out with four gold medals after administering a clinical beat down to the competition, in the face of immense racism and psychological warfare not only from the German hosts but from many of his own countrymen and teammates. 

How does he stack up against Jackie Joyner-Kersee, whose Olympic career looks like this:

1984, Los Angeles: Silver Medal, Heptathalon.

1988, Seoul: Gold Medal, Heptathlon.  (Set the still-standing world record with 7,291 points.) 
Gold Medal, Long Jump.

1992, Barcelona: Gold Medal, Heptathlon.  Bronze Medal, Long Jump.

1996, Atlanta: Bronze Medal, Long Jump.  On a bum hamstring.  At the age of 34.

Note: the Heptathlon consists of the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m sprint, long jump, javelin throw, and 800m race over two days.  Basically, speed, endurance, strength, hand-eye coordination, and general badassery and fortitude are required.

Note II: She won a medal in an event that involves jumping, on a busted hammy, at an age when most track athletes are retired.  I just though it bore repeating.  
  
In summary, here's Phelps immediately after winning that pivotal 19th medal: "All my life I wanted to do something no one has ever done before, and I did it.  I'm the first Michael Phelps."  Oh my god, what a charlatan.  He just third-person trumpeted his own awesomeness when said awesomeness was blatantly obvious to everyone on the planet and really, REALLY did not need a smug reiteration.  Yes, if anyone can say "Scoreboard, dude.  Unimpeachable bragging rights are mine," it's him, but seriously?  "The first Michale Phelps."  What a dope.  Which is kind of my point. 


Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, and he submitted one of the great displays of athletic dominance in history in 2008.  But is he the Greatest Olympian ever?  Nuh uh.  Not to me.  You have to have the medals to be considered great, but you also have to be the kind of person who would never utter that quote in public.  Medals can be melted down.  Records can be broken.  Greatness endures.  Make no mistake, Michael Phelps is really, really great.  He'll just never be the greatest.