I Heart Chicago

Really I do. It's the greatest city in the world (other than maybe Rome). And here I am, getting to fly in and do two days of training here, and do all the fun Chicago things. Flew into O'Hare this afternoon. Awesome. Except, wait. My training is not in Chicago. It's in somewhere called Naperville, a good 45 minutes to an hour outside of anything that could reasonably be called Chicago. And it's basically a poor man's Blaine. Great. At least I got a nice meal (Cajun Ribeye at Morton's) but there is nothing else to do here and I don't have a car. The good news is that they have beer in the little market thing by the lobby. The bad news is that Naperville has some kind of homosexual rule where they have to open the beer before you can take it to your room, so the max I could get at a time is four, and I'm in the room furthest from the lobby - it's like a ten minute walk back. I don't feel a whole lot of stamina tonight, mostly because Wonderbaby^TM has decided she quite enjoys crying at night, so let's see how this goes. F Naperville.

- Did you see the Blue Jays hired Cito Gaston as their manager again? I was so confused when I saw that. It was at like 4 am when I was feeding Wonderbaby^TM and watching Sportscenter, and I was wondering if I had drifted off and time travelled back to 1991. I mean seriously, the guy hasn't managed since 1997. That may not seem like much, but it's 9 years! That's almost 10. I don't even know what he's been doing since then, and I'm not going to look it up, but I'm betting it involved a street cart and some tacos of dubious quality.

- 10,000 B.C. comes out on DVD on Tuesday, and I'm telling you for your own good don't rent this. If you're a gigantic nerd like me, you were super stoked by the previews and got a nerd boner and wanted to see this. Well, I wasted my time and money in the theater and it's a huge piece of crap. I'm not going to get into a whole movie review thing here, because that's more Dawg's thing if he'd ever bother to post ever again, but let's just say that it's a mess. Theres a whole thing with a Sabertooth Tiger that is just forced and stupid, and the terrain they traverse somehow changes from frozen tundra to tropical forest to desert very quickly. That is a magical continent. Don't rent it. Don't.

- Other movies I've seen lately - SemiPro was also a huge turd, as was Fool's Gold (obviously). National Treasure 2 was also a piece of crap. I really liked the first one, but this second one just went out of it's way to try and be on a really grand scale and it did not work - at all, although Diane Kruger is quite attractive. Strange Wilderness was also bad, which surprised me because I think both Steve Zahn and that fat kid from Superbad are both quite hilarious. Juno was very good. And surprising me was a movie called Senior Skip Day which was really not bad. Mostly due to the performance of the lead character, who is basically a younger, slightly less than rich man's Ryan Reynolds (who I would probably make out with). It's kind of a Can't Hardly Wait/Eurotrip quite movie, that if I still was ever able to go out drinking all night and then come home with friends and drink some more, that would be in the late night rotation. Too bad I'm all grown up and totally responsible now.

- Speaking of not writing for this site anymore, since Grand Slam has disappeared of the map, our own Nick Faldo has offered up his services as our golf blogger. We should see his first contribution this week, so be gentle.

- The Girl Next Door is also a very good movie. I mean, I saw it a long time ago, but I'm flipping channels here and it's on FX. Good movie.

- So Curt Schilling's career is probably over. Let the Hall of Fame debate begin. Now, the biggest knock on him is he only has 216 career victories. To give a little perspective, that's less than Jamie Moyer and only one more than Kenny Rogers, neither of whom are anywhere near Hall of Famers. It is also sixth among active players, which is a note in his favor.

If you know and understand baseball and statistics, you know that wins are not the best measure of pitcher, not even close. I do, however, think they can give you a pretty good gage of a pitcher's career. Obviously, there are a lot of metrics that need to be looked at beyond that, but it is a decent surface look barometer, and Schilling doesn't really measure up.

I'm not a big believer in the 300 win barrier, as only 23 players in the history of the game have hit that number. So let's ignore things like career wins, 20 wins seasons, and all star games that idiots like to look at, and concentrate on things that matter.

First off, ERA. Now, ERA is also a fairly dubious way to evaluate a player, since it depends a lot on luck and the defense behind him, but it's not totally useless. Schilling finished in the top 10 in ERA in nine seasons - that's pretty good. Strikeouts per nine is a good way to look at dominance, and he finished in the top ten there ten times. WHIP is my personal favorite pitcher stat, and he finished in the top ten there 11 times. Eleven. That's fantastic. He posted a WHIP under 1 (phenomenal) twice, and under 1.10 nine times.

Another thing people will point to is his lack of a Cy Young award, and will point to this as not being "the best pitcher of his era." Well, he finished in the top four four times, including finishing second three times in a four year span - that's pretty dominant.

Honestly, when I started writing this, I figured no way was he Hallworthy, but now I'm a little more conflicted. He's hurt quite a bit by not becoming a full time starter until he was 26, and that's reflected in his win total, but once he did, he was absolutely one of the best pitchers of his generation. He finished with a WHIP+ over 120 twelve times, and was just incredibly consistent. Consistent at a high level.

According to baseball reference, his most similar pitchers are Kevin Brown, Bob Welch, and Orel Hershisher. That sounds like a pretty good pitcher, one of the best in the league for a stretch, but not a hall of famer, and that's pretty much my impression of him. Now, the big X-factor for Schilling is his postseason performance, which is nothing short of phenomenal. In 19 career postseason starts and 133.1 innings, he's posted a WHIP of 0.97 (and a 10-2 record). Just to put that WHIP into a lit bit of perspective, since Schilling broke into the league, just only nine pitchers have had a season where they pitched that many innings and posted a better WHIP (Greg Maddux (3), Pedro Martinez (5), Randy Johnson, Johan Santana, Kevin Brown, Roy Halladay, Jason Schmidt, Bret Saberhagen, and Pascual Perez?). Cherry-picking stats? Yes. But still makes an interesting point.

Basically, I think Curt Schilling is stil not a hall of famer (although baseball reference disagrees), but it's a hell of a lot closer than I originally thought. Another very interesting case is Mike Mussina, but I'll save that for another time.

- Speaking of Mussina, I just finished an interesting book by John Feinstein called "Living on the Black" which follows both Mussina and Tom Glavine around last season to give a little insight into the life on an aging pitcher. Honestly, although I love baseball books and I love Feinstein and I have a mad crush on Mussina, it was a little boring. His big mistake was just following the two pitchers and never delving into the lives of their teammates. Despite having a season where Glavine won number 300, the Mets had a historic collapse to end the season, and the first time ever Mussina was pulled from a starting rotation, it's still really slow. Needed to flesh out a little more of the teammates and what life was like for all of them. So not bad, but not great. Next up: 3 nights in August starring Tony LaRussa - although right at the start the author, Buzz Bissinger of "I hate blogs" fame goes into how people who are into statistics to evaluate baseball players "don't get it", so I'm already a bit apprehensive.

- On the way to the office today, they KFAN guys were talking about Jessica Simpson. At one point they mentioned her music, and I have spent the rest of the day trying to think of a single song of hers, and I got nothin'. Seriously, I can't think of a single song she has ever sang, ever. So her entire musical career has left zero imprint on my life. Killer rack, though.

- I was described by a co-worker today as "the quintessential really smart guy who doesn't fully apply himself because he doesn't have to." Pretty accurate. Not exactly high praise, but I'll take it.

- You know how when you're in a hotel, often times they will have labels on the tv stations, so when you change channels you'll know what channel you're on? Well this hotel has them, but they are all wrong. It says ESPN, but it's A&E. It says HBO, but it's USA. What the f is up with that? Your stupid city doesn't suck enough, you have to f with me on the tv too? It's all I have. Thank god for the internet.

- With the NBA draft just a few days away, I should probably say something, but I'm having trouble being interested, even with the Wolves having third pick because they will just screw it up. Here is Chad Ford's latest mock draft and I have some things to say.

1. Rose should definitely be the pick at #1. Beasley looked incredible last year, but things seemed really be really easy for him. Once he hits the NBA, he's going to have to work his ass off, and it's not clear if he's up to the challenge, whereas Rose appears to be. Stupid? Yes, pretty much, but when two players are this close, you have to find some kind of seperation somewhere.

2. Please don't take OJ Mayo. Please either trade down (great move) or take Jerryd Bayless. And it has nothing to do with Mayo's "character issues" because "character issues" are pretty much the most overrated thing ever. I'll take talent over charity work every time. Bayless is and will be a better player. Plus, and everyone seems to be ignoring this, Mayo will absolutely not resign in Minnesota after his first contract is up. Craves the spotlight waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much.

3. Going way too high: Eric Gordon, Mario Chalmers, Kosta Koufos, Robin Lopez, Mareese Speights. Interesting is to see Joe Alexander in the lottery. I expected him to be more of a sleeper mid-first pick, and I love his game. It seems Chad Ford might be figuring this whole thing out, I'll be interested to see if NBA GMs can do the same and take him that high. I'm predicting a Brady Quinn-like freefall.

4. The Wolves have two very early second round picks (#1 and #4), the kind where you can actually get solid players. According to Ford, they will get Devon Hardin and some dude from Australia, while NBADraft.net has them taking some Serbian dude and Bill Walker. I'd be pretty happy with Hardin and Walker. Ideally, I'd love to see them get Walker and Courtney Lee. Another intriguing possibility is Mike Taylor, formerly of Iowa State who lit the Gophers up at the Barn. Honestly, if Walker is there and they pass I'm going to assassinate Kevin McHale. Not kidding.

- Of course, NBADraft.net also has Trent Plaisted being drafted, and I'm almost positive he pulled out of the draft. Checking ESPN and I'm wrong, it was Lee Cummard who pulled out. Way to go Plaisted, enjoy being this years Rickert. Twenty bucks says the Jazz take him at #53 and then Boozer punches him in the face in a pickup game.

- There's more to talk about and tell you why everybody else is wrong, but I'm very tired, even though it's early, and the lady with the beer is very far away. More tomorrow.

I'm not dead

Not yet anyway. I appreciate the concern Bear. As sad as it is to admit, I did indeed take it easy last night and hit the bed early. Fortunately, tonight is different. I don't have to leave the hotel for my flight home until 11:30 tomorrow morning. After tooling around Queens and Brooklyn all day checking out stores, we had a very nice dinner in Manhattan (Grilled Swordfish, really excellent) where I had a couple nice drinks, followed up by some beers in the hotel bar where I showed why I never play pool. I have some Coors Lights in the hotel sink on ice, and am ready to write random, mostly uninteresting comments whilst watching the Spurs/Lake Show.

- First off, here's something annoying. We're in Queens and Brooklyn all day, and when it comes time for lunch, my co-workers have zero interest in hitting up any kind of local establishment. Every place we pass that looks interesting is either too dirty, too weird, or I've never heard of that place. So guess where we eat? Applebees. I like to very cleverly call it "Crapplebees." Feel free to use that. So annoying. I don't understand why you'd go all that way from home and eat at a chain, and a god awful chain at that. I was surprised when we were in Manhattan that they didn't suggest one of the 8 million Sbarro's we passed or the "fancy" Olive Garden in Times Square.

- The awesomest thing ever - Beer Pong coming to the Wii, which I own, as I am awesome.

- The Wolves got the third pick in the draft, which is actually what I was hoping for. If they got one or two, they'd end up with either Beasley or Rose, and whoever they ended up taking would end up being a bust. This way they can take Jerryd Bayless who is going to be the Chris Paul of this draft. The two other dudes who might be taken instead would be OJ Mayo or Brook Lopez. Mayo runs funny, and Lopez is a tall white dude. Consider the history of tall white college dudes in the NBA, and in particular consider this franchise's history with white centers. Granted, the statistician in me realizes past performance isn't indicative of future behavior in this case, but his name is Brook. That can't be good. Now, if it was Brooks, like Brooks Robinson, you'd have something here. The only other athlete ever named Brook was baseball legend Brook Fordyce, career OPS+ = 82. So yeah, history isn't on your side here.

- With apologies to stepping on Dawger's toes ever, you know, if he ever reviewed movies anymore, I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall last weekend instead of the Narnia movie. I have to highly recommend it. It's like a date movie, but a guy kind of date movie if that makes sense. It's not funny out loud constantly laughing like Superbad, but it's very funny in it's own way, and Jason Segal is nails as the lead - plus you get to see his junk like 100 times. As a bonus, both Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis are very hot, especially Kunis (see above). It's like she played that girl on that 70's show, then disappeared for five years, and then reappeared as a top five girl on the WWWWWW list. Fun, stalkerish fact: she has two different colored eyes.

- Speaking of movies, how is there another Hulk movie coming out? Didn't they just do this like two years ago and it bombed? And there are billboards all over Times Square for this thing. I don't get it.

- Is there a more worthless player than Bruce Bowen? The dude is known for his defense which basically consists of holding and pushing the other player, and supposedly he's a good three point shooter but get this. They just kicked the ball out to him on the wing for three, wide open, and he wouldn't take the shot even though the Lakers weren't guarding him. The announcer guy mentioned that he won't shoot the three from anywhere but the corner. What the f is up with that noise?

- Back to Bayless, who else is going to be the "point guard of the future" for this team? Telfair? Please. He'll be arrested for something in the next year or so, and even if not, he'll be hurt. And last year he shot a less than stellar 40% from the field, which was THE BEST OF HIS CAREER. Seriously, Snacks, get off Telfair. And Foye is the other choice, but he's a shooting guard and let's not pretend otherwise. Oh, and Jaric would probably be good to party with, but not to run a team. And if you doubt my rookie NBAers prowess, just remember how I predicted Corey Brewer to be the third best rookie this year - second after Oden went down - and he ended up with nary a vote in the rookie of the year balloting.

- Home cooking in full effect in the Western Conference Finals. With one minute left and a 2 point game, Duncan - who is the world's biggest crybay homo, by the way - grabbed a rebound and got slapped on the arm and the ball went out of bounds. Not only no foul, but ball to the Lakers. Frighteningly bad officiating. It's like that one cheater guy whose name I don't remember right now is back.

- Hey Nick Blackburn fans, what happened? And please, spare me your "only one of those runs was earned" bs. Dude got killed. 6 hits and 7 runs given up in the sixth. Good to know I won't have to hand over the keys to the blog to that jackass Dawger.

- You know who doesn't get nearly enough play? Arky Vaughn.

- Seinfeld/Simpsons is on zero channels right now, whilst Sex and (in?) the City is on two channels. How the f does this happen? And Kristen Davis is on Letterman. Sweet mother of the holy baby infant jesus.

- In case you missed it, ESPN gives the Gophers the #25 recruiting class in hoops for next year. I'd love to do some research into the classes above them and compare, but dude, I'm drunk. Why don't you f'ing go do it yourself, ass.

- Remember when Adam Sandler was funny? Seriously, this Zohan movie looks like something Eddie Murphy would crank out. Sorry Bogart/Dawg. For those other of yous, if you want to check out an under the radar awesome Sandler flick, rent/buy Bulletproof.

- In my semi-drunken stupor, I've finally done something I've always wanted to do and sponsored a player page at baseball-reference.com (the online baseball encyclopedia). The player chosen for this prestigious honor: Scott Stahoviak. As of this moment, the message isn't showing up as they need to audit it to make sure I don't say "ass" or "tits", but it should be there shortly. Simply awesome.

- Funny thing about the sponsoring, is that Stahoviak is only $5 per year (we have him locked up for 2 years, BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABY!), but Rich Becker (aka Bitch Wrecker) is $10 per year. Probably because if I remember correctly he's some coach for some team, whereas Stahoviak is coaching a high school team now (Carmel Catholic High School in Illinois). Chip "Chiper" Hale is only $5 too. Jack Cust is also available, but he's $90 per year. $90. Jesus. Nick Punto is sponsored by a Twins message board that bills itself as The Scccrappiest Twins fans on the interweb. Pretty active too. Never heard of them though. One of the first posts on there points out how 319 major leaguers have home runs this year, but Mauer and Delmon aren't two of them. I think I dig those guys.

- Are you wondering where Jerry Holman is now? Me too. After playing in Turkey for three years, he's now landed in Qatar. I guess they have basketball there now. Guess who else is on that team? Mo Hargrow. Other notable names in that league, assorted amongst the Al-Muhammeds and El-Hadads, include nobody I've ever heard of. I'm thinking Dusty and Rick's Australian YMCA could come into this league and roll on undefeated. And somebody would probably get shot, but whatever.

- Continuing on this theme, Travarus Bennett is currently playing in Switzerland. Others in his league include Rashard Lee (Tennessee), Sheray Thomas (Kentucky), and Ray Henderson (Clemson). Not exactly top shelf.

- Is there a creepier movie trailer out there right now than The Strangers? Or Ever? Jesus Christ, just the preview scares the poop out of me. And then they choose Liv Tyler for the lead actress? She's scary enough by herself.

- Last year, prior to the draft, I predicted that that year's Rick Rickert would be JamesOn Curry of Oklahoma State. He ended up being picked in the second round, 51st overall by the Bulls, four picks before where Ricky went. This season Curry played 29 total minutes, with a grand total of 7 points. NBA.com has Rickert with career totals of 6 minutes and 3 points, all with the Pistons. Expect Curry to rip up the Australian League sometime soon.

- Bernie Mac's best movie role was pretty clearly Big Perm.

- Current NBDL allstars: Tony Gipson (LSU), Errick Craven (USC), Billy Thomas (KU), Wendell White (UNLV), Taurean Green (FLORIDA), Jelani McCoy (UCLA, career minor leaguer and awesome shot blocker), DJ Strawberry (maryland), Julius Hodge (NC State and got shot so he's tough like fitty), Darius Washington (Memphis and nice free throws ass), and Nick Fazekas (NEVADA).

- I don't know what's up with Grandslam, he keeps telling me he's "busy" with "work." I'm pretty sure that's code for his new Indian girlfriend (dot not feather) has him wrapped around her little finger. Point of fact, I'm looking for somebody to write a guest golf column. Nick Faldo, I'm looking at you. Or Theory. Or Dr. Acula. Or Stork.

- Jelani McCoy, by the by, was absolutely the best shot blocker I've ever seen in my college basketball watching history. He couldn't do much else, and he was born in Oakland, which is without question the worst city in the history of cities. Dude hooked on with the NBA for a bit (several teams) but sucked and could never stick, since he couldn't block shots in the NBA. In eight extremely partial NBA seasons, never got over a 1 block per game average, despite four good chances to be a contributor. Shame. Probably the weed.

- There is now an infomercial on with a toll free number asking "if you've been a victim of witchcraft please call 1-888-332-4141".

- FIN. Thanks for reading, nerd.

Verdell in Action

In honor of the alleged forthcoming Verdell Jones III signing with the Gophers, I present a video I found on this awesome new website called "Youtube." It is a matchup of former Arizona PG Jerryd Bayless vs. futuer Minnesota PG Verdell Jones. It's a year and a half old, but it still shows some things.

The main thing you can see from the video is just how awesome Jerryd Bayless was. The whole video is pretty much Bayless up until the 1 minute mark, then Verdell starts to get involved.

At the 1:29 mark you see Bayless go right by Verdell, in one of the only times in the video they go head to head. I have no idea if Verdell just didn't make the effort to try to stop Bayless, but if he did, there have to be some serious concerns about his defensive ability.

Right after that the video goes into a nice little back-and-forth between the two of them. Verdell shows a very nice mid-range game, which is a nice surprise considering one of the main knocks on his game is his perimeter shooting. Jones finished the game with 28 points and 8 assists in leading his team to victory. If you watch from 1:28 until 2:56, you'll see everything you need. The video really showcases his ability to score, and considering his strengths are said to be his ballhandling and passing ability, this really makes him look like a complete player.

I'm even more excited than I was already.

Watching Stuff

Just some thoughts as I watched some games tonight:

- First of all, before watching hoops we watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It. Was. Awesome. It's a documentary about the world of competitive Donkey Kong. The sheer nerdery on display is off the charts. I'm a fairly nerdy guy, but these guys make me look like freakin' Fonzi. I can't recommend it highly enough. It might be my favorite movie ever. EVER.

- Watching the second half of Michigan State/Wisconsin, and it's 30-26 with 13:30 left in the game. Not the first half, the whole game. If the Big Ten wants to start getting better players, they should strongly consider not showing their games on national TV. What 18 year old kid wants to play this kind of basketball?

- Arizona freshman Jerryd Bayless is ridiculous. He's got the speed of Ty Lawson and the explosiveness of Rico Tucker. I'm telling you, assuming Arizona makes the tournament, and it looks pretty likely, they could do some serious damage.

- God, Michigan State sucks on the road. And Neitzel is pulling a Dan Coleman, 1-10 shooting so far against the Badgers tonight.

- 99 total points in the MSU/Wisc game, well under the posted over/under of 124. I think just going under on every single big ten game is the way to go.

- Of course, now that I talk about Arizona, they lose at home to USC by twelve. They are a weird, weird team.

- Cal in basically a must-win game at home against Washington State, falls behind 9-2 in the first 16:35 and haven't gotten Ryan Anderson, their best player and #1 in the country in Offensive Rating among players who touch the ball on 20% of their teams possessions, a single shot. Brilliant.

- Watching the Utah State game on one of the random channels I get (the Altitude channel). Their arena is much more impressive in person. Just saying, you know, in case anybody else out there gets Altitude and was watching the game and thought "That's really not as impressive as WWWWWW said it was that one time."

- Ryan Anderson is currently projected to go 26th in the NBA Draft. He may struggle on defense due to lack of athleticism, but trust me, his offensive game will be just fine and he'll be a steal at 26. The Wolves need to trade up to get him if he's there at 26. Look at these numbers: 22 pts and 10 rebs per game on 51% shooting, including 45% from three and 89% from the line and has scored over 30 points four times this year. Sick.

- Jaycee Caroll of Utah State is shooting 51% from three. And that's with 177 attempts. That is ridiculous.

- At half: UCLA 29, Arizona St 18. Sounds like Big Ten action.

- This is boring. I'm going to give you a link, and I'm telling you not to click on it. It's not porn, and it's totally safe for work, but I'm telling you, do not click on this. Ok. Here it is. Don't click here.