NFL 2011: Enjoy the ride.

I just took a look back at my predictions for last years NFL season...let's take a look, shall we?

Playoff Slot	I predicted	What happened	Thoughts
AFC East	New York Jets	New England Patriots	The Jets did win the Wild Card, but I discounted the Patriots entirely, saying they didn't have enough talent. They went 14-2.
AFC North	Baltimore Ravens	Pittsburgh Steelers	Like the Jets, the Ravens missed a division title (but went 12-4) but did make the playoffs as a Wild Card. I picked the Steelers for that slot, so these were just flipped.
AFC South	Indianapolis Colts	Indianapolis Colts	My exact quote was: "Picking against the Indianapolis Colts is just stupid until they prove otherwise. Drive on."
AFC West	San Diego Chargers	Kansas City Chiefs	Did not see this coming.
Wild Cards	Pittsburgh Steelers, Tennessee Titans	Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets	Can we all agree to pretend I didn't pick the Titans? Wow. I honestly can't believe I did that.
AFC Champion	Baltimore Ravens	Pittsburgh Steelers	Not a terrible pick, but I (like most) didn't think the Steelers had a real shot with Roethlisberger missing the first four games of last season..
NFC East	Dallas Cowboys	Philadelphia Eagles	The Cowboys not only missed the playoffs, they went 6-10 and fired their coach. Great pick!
NFC North	Green Bay Packers	Chicago Bears	I absolutely forgot this until I checked. The Packers ended the year looking so dominant, it's hard to remember they didn't even win their division.
NFC South	New Orleans Saints	Atlanta Falcons	My exact quote was: "This one belongs to the New Orleans Saints until Drew Brees and coach Sean Payton say otherwise." Or, you know, Matt Ryan, Roddy White and Michael Turner do.
NFC West	San Francisco 49ers	Seattle Seahawks	... I honestly still have no words about this. I hate Mike Singletary. The Seahawks might be the worst team in the league this year and they won the division. Thud.
Wild Cards	Atlanta Falcons, New York Giants	Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints	As I'd picked the Packers and Saints to make the playoffs, the only miss here really is the Giants. A much better job with the NFC, I think.
NFC Champion	Green Bay Packers	Green Bay Packers	NAILED IT!
Super Bowl Champion	Green Bay Packers	Green Bay Packers	NAILED IT!

So, all in all, not too shabby but some seriously embarassing picks there. I don't think I'm a football genius but I do pay some attention. I think the lesson here is every year contains a suprise or three, and given the lockout, I'd wager we'll have even more in 2011. Should be exciting...

Who said this?

Who said this?

“I’ve got to be honest. I can’t lie. I wasn’t happy to do it,” [he] said. “But I did the job. That’s the point. It’s not about me, it’s about the team.”

Now, before you answer...know this.

The person who said this is ...

a) Being paid an annual salary of $6,500,000 - and that job only lasts about six months.
b) Is a major leaguer, who is as of this writing the 44th best player at his position - meaning he's not only not playing at a starting level, but isn't even a top bench player;
c) Was talking about laying down a sacrifice bunt for a team strapped for offense.

For those who haven't yet cracked this code, the player in question is Miguel Tejada, who did in fact lay down the bunt, then essentially walked down the line so he didn't force a throw - this is called "dogging it" and is, in a word, unacceptable.

This disgusts me and it should disgust Bruce Bochy and Brian Sabean as well as every other Giants fan. Tejada apparently still thinks of himself as a power threat, and had to be talked into laying down a frigging bunt for a team that can't score three runs a game. This is the kind of stuff that sends rookies back to the minors. It would be one thing if the guy was doing...well, anything. But Orlando Cabrera is on the team because our $6.5 million dollar man sucks so much.

Good lord, Miggy, shut your piehole and be a team player.

Or...not: As of August 31, just two days after I posted this, the Giants have waived Miguel Tejada. Miggy, not sorry to see you go. Have fun counting the money you didn't earn.

Rules Were Made For Exceptions

This might be the dumbest thing I've heard in awhile:

The Giants' Wall of Fame will add two new members Saturday when right-hander Jason Schmidt and center fielder Marvin Benard are honored in pregame ceremonies.

The Wall of Fame commemorates the accomplishments of retired players who performed for a minimum of nine seasons as a San Francisco Giant, or five seasons with at least one All-Star selection while representing the club.

Look ... this is crazy talk. I don't want to overstate this - I am a Giants season-ticket holder and I have no idea what the Wall of Fame is, let alone its location. But ... Marvin Benard? Just because some manager got it wrong one year and named him to the All-Star Game does not mean he needs to be honored.

At all.

Forget the fact that he has actually been caught using steroids, unlike another Giants outfielder you may have heard of. Forget the fact that he was by all accounts, a surly bastard who had no sense of humor about the Giants fans teasing him...the fact remains that Marvin Benard is one of the WORST Giants this storied franchise has ever run out on a regular basis.

But, despite that, there is this:

In 2002, the Giants leadoff  man [Benard, believe it or not] stole five bases. He hit a homerun every 123 at-bats. He struck out every 4.7 at-bats. And he made $4.2 million in 2002 and 2003.

Look, if I'm being fair - something I don't particularly want to be - Benard wasn't terrible. He just wasn't special, and was wildly overpaid and trotted out there despite being clearly not very good at his job. Here are the players he's most similar to statistically over his career:

1. Beals Becker (956)
2. Reed Johnson (955)
3. Danny Bautista (954)
4. Billy Sample (954)
5. Felix Jose (952)
6. Merv Rettenmund (951)
7. Shane Victorino (950)
8. Oddibe McDowell (949)
9. Barry Bonnell (949)
10. Terrence Long (948) 

Look, I don't know who Beals Becker is either, but I doubt Reed Johnson, Danny Bautista, Terrence Long or Felix Jose are making any Walls of Fame anytime soon. I'm genuinely shocked to see Shane Victorino there, who is actually better than average.  (I suspect these don't value stolen bases or defense nearly as much as they should.)

Here's a breakdown of Benard's career, courtesy of Baseball Reference:

Year	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BA	OBP
1995	34	5	13	1	4	1	0	.382	.400
1996	19	2	7	0	4	1	0	.368	.429
1996	488	89	121	5	27	25	11	.248	.333
1997	114	13	26	1	13	3	1	.228	.315
1998	286	41	92	3	36	11	4	.322	.396
1999	562	100	163	16	64	27	14	.290	.359
2000	560	102	147	12	55	22	7	.263	.342
2001	392	70	104	15	44	10	5	.265	.320
2002	123	16	34	1	13	5	1	.276	.321
2003	71	5	14	0	4	1	0	.197	.237
9 Seasons	2630	441	714	54	260	105	43	.271	.343
162 Game Avg.	478	80	130	10	47	19	8	.271	.343

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/26/2011.

Marvin Benard should be able to afford many luxuries in life and obviously, as a former major leaguer, he's a great athlete. But he's not memorable ... and the Giants shouldn't try to force that.

The problem with this Wall of Fame is that there is base criteria - and it's all objective. There's no Sniff Test here, no "wait a minute...that guy?"

The Giants are a storied franchise, and certainly any Wall of Fame will be littered with true champions of the game - Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Bobby Bonds, Will Clark and so on. 

But , because there's no subjective analysis to this, there are others on the Wall of Fame who may be lovely people but were not special talents or even special Giants:


Scotty Garrelts
Kirt Manwaring 
Shawn Estes
J.T. Snow
Jeff Brantley

and ... wait for it ... Atlee Hammaker.

The Wall of Fame is dead to me.

A Picture To Make All Giants Fans Happy

The team can't hit a lick!

Everybody is injured!

We're losing games to the Astros and Padres!

But never fear ... the Dodgers are doing worse, in every conceivable way:

Honestly, that makes me feel better. Schadenfreude...it's a powerful thing.

The Daily Show On Class Warfare

It's been passed around a lot thus far, and for good reason -check it out:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
World of Class Warfare - The Poor's Free Ride Is Over
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

God, these people are despicable.

Domestic Violets: A Review

I've had a bit of a bad stretch with some books of late. I've given up on two non-fiction books I expected to love (In The Garden of Beasts and The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron). I read Echo Burning, the 5th in Lee Childs long Jack Reacher series and just uninteresting enough to make me wonder if or when I'll ever read the 6th book. (The 16th is due out next month.)

So, it was incredibly refreshing to take a chance on a debut novel, kindly given to me by the good folks at Harper Perennial. The book is Domestic Violets, by Matthew Norman - and it's a great surprise --  funny, tender and poignant and with more than a few plot twists.

Tom Violet is disgruntled, with his job, his sex life and his dysfunctional family. If it's not a problem in the bedroom, it's with his co-workers and boss (Violet is a copywriter for MSW, a consulting organization that is never clearly defined, largely because no one seems to actually know what they do). Additionally, his father - who left when Tom was young - is Curtis Violet, a world famous author that even casual readers know and adore.How famous? He just won the Pulitzer Prize. Tom's mother has remarried, and her husband Gary suddenly shows up at Tom's house, with his mother nowhere to be found.

Oh, and Tom's has a crush on a 25-year old co-worker, one of the only people he's let see the novel he's spent the last five years writing.

Everyone is keeping secrets.

Though the beginning of the novel made me wonder if anything much was going to happen (answer: Yes!), I raced through Domestic Violets. The pace and tone evokes authors like Jonathan Tropper and Tom Perotta, both favorites of mine, so, you know - that's good. This is an intelligent, aware novel, with a bit of meta commentary about the writing process thrown in for good measure. (I'll also add one note - for awhile, I thought the title was cute but a bit forced - however, it ends up being relatively pitch perfect.)

I highly recommend this and look forward to Norman's next novel.

Rating: 8.5/10.0

The Decemberists Do Eschaton

Once again, my geek worlds are colliding - in this case, twee pop and David Foster Wallace.



Now, I probably need to go back and read Infinite Jest again...

Weep Gently, Giants Fans

It's not just that they are playing uninspired, heartless baseball and losing to teams like the Astros, it's things like this:

Yes, that's a roster showing all the players currently on the DL (faded orange) or who have spent time on the DL.

I believe the phrase you are looking for is, "Ouch, babe."

Thanks to SFBleacherGirl for the above picture.

The GOP Winner in Iowa last night!

Last night, there was an Iowa straw poll for the GOP nomination for President. Crazy Michelle Bachmann won, nudging out Ron Paul. Of course, Rick "Texas should secede from the union" only entered the race yesterday, so stay tuned.

But seriously - this might be the MOST Presidential picture ever. Put her in the White House!

Source: TwitPic "Not sure Michele Bachmann should be eating corn dogs in public:

Geek Love

If there is a picture that embodies more sides of my geekery than the below, I'm not sure what it is:



That is, of course, the Giants 2010 World Series trophy. Guarded by stormtroopers.

Yeah baby.

Want to see something really scary?

That's a classic line from the generally not-so-great Twilight Zone movie, but it's a good question here. Do you?

OK, how about this:

That's pretty damn scary.

Or, how about this:

 

To me, that's even scarier - but perhaps you don't also have an innate fear of Carol Channing.  I could post more pictures of snakes, spiders, Snooki, or Dick Cheney ... but I am not sure I'd find anything scarier than THIS:

That's today's lineup for the Giants. What is truly horrifying is that Bruce Bochy is batting Orlando Cabrera in the fifth slot, ahead of 1st baseman Aubrey Huff. Look, I love Huff Daddy (there's a picture of him in the banner of this very website) - but he's having a horrible season. I mean ... HORRIBLE. And waiting on the bench is youngster Brandon Belt. Who ... isn't. And certainly should be getting some starts. 

This is atrocious.

 I know, Brandon ... I know.