The Chicago Drama Queens

by: pageian

Yep, they've done it again.  The Chicago Cubs are mired in a drama filled quagmire the likes of which few other teams could conjure up.  The Yankees?  Maybe.  The Red Sox?  Perhaps in the depths of their neurosis, maybe.  The Dodgers?  Not a chance.  Leave it to the Cubs to pull off something so strange, so unnecessary, so counter intuitive, so Cub like that there is no mistaking who did it.  They've taken the 5th highest paid pitcher in baseball, their best starter and the workhorse of their rotation and put him in the bullpen.  They now have the highest paid reliever of all time.  Mariano Rivera's got nothing on Carlos Zambrano, apparently.

So why all the fuss?  Why the hand wringing?  Why are Cub fans renouncing their fandom?  Oh so many reasons, where to begin?  For one thing, and perhaps the most important, something that any front office baseball man should intuitively know without having to be told, you DO NOT waste your best starter in the bullpen where he's likely to throw 70 innings on the year instead of having him start and throw 200 innings.  Better pitcher, more innings.  You simply don't sacrifice 130+ innings on a lesser pitcher in order to get 70 good innings from a better pitcher, unless you want to lose games.  In explaining the reasoning for the move though Papa Lou didn't mention to lost innings.  So what did he mention?

It's no secret that the Cubs bullpen has been their Achilles heal so far this season (that and the erratic, anemic offense).  Their closer Carlos Marmol has been pretty good, which is nice if you can get a lead to him in the ninth inning.  That hasn't happened often though with the like of John Grabow, Jeff Gray, Justin Berg, James Russell, Jeff Samardzija and Esmailin Caridad alternately taking turns coughing up leads.  No one has stepped up to pitch the eight inning competently, no one has done well enough to be the setup man for Marmol.  Enter Zambrano.  According to Lou, Zambrano is perfect for the role.  With Ted Lilly coming of the disabled list Saturday someone had to be moved out of the rotation and into the pen.  Instead of choosing Tom Gorzelanny and adding another left hander to the pen or choosing Carlos Silva and allowing him to continue resurrecting his career as a reliever Lou choose to take the number one starter and effectively limit his role with the team.

Any lifelong Cub fan will know that one of the main problems they've had with their bullpen has usually been control.  Every year it's the same thing, a reliever comes in and immediately starts walking hitters.  Unfortunately Carlos Zambrano walks a lot of hitters himself.  The better choice would have been Carlos Silva.  He spent years in the Twins organization learning the finer points of control and not walking hitters.  Wouldn't that have been nice coming out of the pen, someone you could count on to not give up a free pass when it counted?  Silva also has experience coming out of the pen, he spent his first two years in the bigs relieving for the Phillies.  Zambrano also pitched in relief when he came up but not nearly as much.  He's always been a starter except for that brief time when he broke into the majors. 

There are other considerations as well.  Zambrano is a fiery personality, somewhat immature, combustible.  One little bloop hit or misplayed ball can cause a meltdown with him.  That may or may not be a big deal for a starter because a meltdown in the third inning can be recovered from while a meltdown in the eight limits your opportunities to recover.  Zambrano's personality is also going to mean that this move to the pen is going to be remembered all season, it's not going to be let go, it's going to be second guessed every time it fails.  That's drama that is unneeded, unwanted and self inflicted.  It pretty much guarantees that every time things go sour this year there will be complaining by the media, fans, blogosphere and everyone else ad nauseam.  It's going to be one big distraction for a team that absolutely doesn't need distractions.

So how is all this going to play out?  Frankly I see two ways this comes to an end.  It will either be short lived and Zambrano will be back in the rotation inside of a month or it will eventually bring about the end of Zambrano's career as a Cub.  I'm guessing that Jim Hendry acquires a power arm for the bullpen, either by trade, signing or through the minor league system, or another starter gets injured or struggles enough that Zambrano replaces them in the rotation.  If that doesn't happen and this experiment drags on throughout the summer I see Zambrano getting more and more ancy to return to starting and intentionally makes himself the center of attention, makes himself a distraction and butts heads with Piniella.  That's not going to endear himself with the fans, the front office or the new owners and at some point the decision is going to be made to tell him to go home, a la Milton Bradley, and ends up with him being dealt in the offseason at pennies on the dollar. 

I hope I'm wrong.  Since it's happening, I hope Zambrano wasn't just saying the right things, I hope he's really bought into going to the pen for the time being.  I hope he does well and I hope he and Lou communicate with each other and not through the media.  I hope the experiment works in the near term and that Zambrano ends up back in the rotation in the long run, before his patience runs out.  I think it was a bad decision for so many reasons but fortunately it can be undone really easily.  Hopefully Lou Piniella and Jim Hendry come to their senses and end it before it all blows up in their faces.  And let's face it, it's the Cubs, it is going to blow up in their faces.  It's only a matter of time.

MLB Predictions

 

by: pageian

Now that the baseball season has officially started I thought I'd fire off some predictions about what the standings are going to look like at the end of the season.  Let's have a look.

American League

AL East:
1.  New York Yankees.  Too much talent, coming off a title in 2009.
2.  Boston Red Sox.  Wild Card.  No surprise here, led by a very good pitching staff.
3.  Tampa Bay Rays.  Still young, still talented.  They'd be favorites in almost any other division.
4.  Baltimore Orioles.  Finally headed in the right direction now that Angelos isn't calling all the shots.
5.  Toronto Blue Jays.  Rebuilding after a failed attempt to compete with the big boys, dealing the best pitcher in baseball in the offseason will cause quite a drop off.

AL Central:
1.  Detroit Tigers.  Some things have to break right but the talent is there.
2.  Minnesota Twins.  Joe Mauer leads a good team here, bullpen has question marks.
3.  Cleveland Indians.  Certainly have holes but also have talent spread around, above .500 is possible.
4.  Chicago White Sox.  Hard to predict, they could compete or they could crash and burn.
5.  Kansas City Royals.  Time is just about up on the Dayton Moore regime, and not a minute too soon.

AL West:
1.  Texas Rangers.  Bold prediction given their past pitching issues, this may be the year they get it together.
2.  Los Angelos Angels.  Still have talent despite losing two good hitters and a good pitcher.
3.  Seattle Mariners.  Great makeover in the offseason but offense still has issues.  Jack Z may be GM of the year.
4.  Oakland A's.  Gambling on Sheets could backfire, the shine may be coming off Billy Beane.

National League

NL East:
1.  Philadelphia Phillies.  Great offense, great top of the rotation staff.
2.  Atlanta Braves.  Wild Card.  Losing Vazquez won't hurt too much, Heyward is for real.
3.  New York Mets.  Surely this year will be better than last... but not good enough to save Minaya's job.
4.  Florida Marlins.  Living on the edge isn't easy, sub .500 team this year won't be surprising.
5.  Washington Nationals.  Could add Storen, Zimmerman, Wang and Strasburg mid-season, second half will be better than first half.

NL Central:
1.  Chicago Cubs.  Doubters focus on the negative, fans wear rose colored glasses, the truth is somewhere in between.  Bullpen will be solid, offense will return to '08 levels, they'll be just good enough to win division.
2.  St. Louis Cardinals.  Top heavy, they have stars and not much backing them up, injuries could be trouble for this team.
3.  Milwaukee Brewers.  Offense is there, pitching is not, without some luck they'll be out of contention by early September.
4.  Cincinnati Reds.  Dusty Baker single handedly holds this team back.  Young talent coming along but not ready to contend yet.  Will they survive the whims of Dusty the arm mangler?
5.  Pittsburgh Pirates.  Rebuilding, but with mediocre talent.  The losing seasons will number 18 in a row next fall.
6.  Houston Astros.  A good candidate to completely tank, their stars are mostly old, their young guys aren't very good, their GM is horrible, their owner is bad.  Not much to look forward to for 'Stros fans.

NL West:
1.  Los Angels Dodgers.  The ownership divorce will take it's toll but not enough to derail a good team.
2.  Colorado Rockies.  The Rox have some talent but are streaky, pitching is always an issue, humidor or no.
3.  Arizona Diamondbacks.  Making progress but still have issues.  Horrible trade, should have kept Scherzer.
4.  San Francisco Giants.  The pitching is great, the offense is not.  Won't score enough runs, the bats they added are mediocre at best.
5.  San Diego Padres.  Offensively challenged as well but without the pitching of the others, last place is theirs for now.

Coming soon.......

I've had a couple ideas rolling around in my head for some new posts.  I'm planning to do write ups on the Canadian sitcom Corner Gas as well as a post on South Park.  Hopefully those will be up soon, maybe in the next week or so.  They'll likely be done in the style of some of the other sitcom reviews I've done though they'll be less about the specifics of the shows themselves and a bit more about the impact each has had.  If you haven't heard of Corner Gas you should do yourself a favor and check it out, it's one of the best sitcoms ever.  No Joke.

The Top 5 Rock Guitarist of All Time

by: pageian

Another quick post today, sort of a follow up to my last post about the best rock rhythm sections.  Today's list focuses on lead guitar players.  I should note that this is really a list of my favorite guitarists, I'm not saying that this list should be taken as gospel or that I really think this accurately measures their skill.  It's simply who I like and why I like them, in order.

#1.  Jimmy Page.  This one is a no-brainer.  As I mentioned previously anything Zeppelin automatically wins any competition, and in this case it's not close.  In fact, the distance between #1 and #2 is so wide that it would be greater than the distance between #2 and #100 if I were to do a list that big.  To put it another way, if I rated these guys on a scale of 1-100, Jimmy Page would be 100 and no one else would be above 50.  I don't think there's been another guitarist who came up with as many classic riffs, hooks and solos.  It's been said that Page was the master of lightness and shade on the guitar, supremely beautiful acoustic and electric playing while also coming up with intimidating, crushing sounds and textures that Led Zeppelin is perhaps best known for.  Page also touched on ground that few others in the rock arena attempted, folk, Indian, funk, reggae, you name it.  He counts to his credit such masterpieces as Kashmir, When The Levee Breaks, In My Time of Dying and of course, Stairway to Heaven.  Like I said, no one else comes close.  Jimmy Page was the rock star that all the other rock stars wanted to be.

#2. Duane Allman.  Allman was about as good as it gets when you're talking about southern rock, leading the Allman Brothers Band to their earliest success while also guesting on many other projects for his friends in the music business.  People understood how good he was and that put him in demand.  You get the feeling while listening to him play that he was the type of guy who was probably good at everything he tried..... except perhaps motorcycle riding.

#3. Jimi Hendrix.  I like Hendrix and his playing to the point that I believe he was the prototype for many of the great guitarist of the last 40 years.  Other than Page, Hendrix has perhaps the most studied and admired body of work in history.  The problem for him of course is that his body of work just wasn't all that large in comparison to others.  We all know what he did in the late 60's but how would he have stood in the 70's and beyond?  Would he have adapted or was his style only possible in it's time?  Who's to say but I happen to believe he would have fit in well, talent like his generally sets trends, not follows them. 

#4  Eric Clapton.  Clapton has as much or more critical acclaim than most on this list but it's important to remember that he's essentially been done as a true rock guitarist for quite some time.  Clapton was one of the best in terms of being a technically correct, clean guitarist, sort of the anti-Jimmy Page.  Page's playing was more raw, perhaps even sloppy at times, which he used to good effect.  Clapton seemed to rarely make mistakes even while playing live.  He's got a large body of work to draw from, spread out over decades but for me there are too few high points.  I guess the analogy for me would be that of a baseball player who makes it to the hall of fame on the strength of a few great seasons compared to the baseball player who makes it due to many solid, consistently good seasons.  I'm sure there are people who will disagree but for me he's no Jimmy Page.

#5. Eddie Van Halen.  This was a tough one, I had a hard time picking between guys who may not have been as good but who had a big impact in some way, shape or form on rock and roll.  Van Halen won out because he's every bit as good as anyone else on this list (save Page imho) and also has many memorable riffs of his own.  What holds him back here is that he pretty much just does one thing even though he does it very well, and that's playing straight up rock.  He's a keyboardist too of course but that doesn't count here, when it comes to the guitar what he's known for and what he does best are solid rock riffs, fast playing, heavy sounds and great solo's. 

Honorable mention: Angus Young (great but limited arsenal), Keith Richards (huge band, memorable riffs), George Harrison (The Beatles, enough said), Kirk Hammett (helped bring classical influence to metal), Jeff Beck (good but erratic), Rory Gallagher (overshadowed by more famous players of his era), Brian May (very intelligent player), Slash (whatever you think of him, he has done some good work) and Pete Townshend (similar to Richards, good band but he was essential a rhythm guitarist in a three piece band).

The 5 Best Rock Rhythm Sections

by: pageian

Okay, a quick post.  Listening to Zeppelin a bit today got me thinking, who are some of the best bass and drum player duo's in rock history?  So, off the top of my head, here are my top five.

1. John Paul Jones, John Bonham - Led Zeppelin
Don't get me started.  No one else is even close, in my opinion.  As a rule anything Zeppelin wins any contest as far as I'm concerned and the rule applies here as well.  They were both great individually and together they were dynamic and unmatched.  Just listen to the bass/drum line during the run up to the bow part of "Dazed and Confused" from Zeppelin's live album, "The Song Remains The Same".  Like I said, unmatched.

2.  John Entwistle, Keith Moon - The Who
Two of the greats.  Entwistle never got a lot of pub but he was undoubtedly talented.  Moon's drumming speaks for itself, there was no one else like him.  While I like Bonham better, Moon was truly unique.

3.  Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman - The Rolling Stones
I think most people would leave these two off the list as neither was truly great, put them together and you have a quite solid, if unspectacular (by rock standards) rhythm sections. 

4. Neal Pert, Geddy Lee - Rush
I really like both these guys, and Rush is a great band.  Maybe they're a bit overshadowed in the music world because they're Canadian, but Canadians should be proud of them.

5. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr - The Beatles
No, I'm not kidding.  Okay maybe a little.  I guess overall success of the band counts a little too.  McCartney probably doesn't get enough credit for his playing, very melodic.  Ringo?  Well, he was The Beatles drummer so technically he qualifies as part of a rhythm section.

The Legend of Futurama

 

by pageian:

Futurama was an animated sitcom that premiered on Fox in March of 1999.  The show was short lived, lasting only four seasons before syndication and eventually being reborn in 2007 with a series of four movies aired on Comedy Central.  The show was picked up again for what will be a sixth season which will begin airing in mid-2010.

The series revolved around the Phillip J. Fry, a twentieth century underachiever who was cryogenically frozen at midnight, December 31, 1999.  Fry was unfrozen a thousand years later in the year 3000 where he meets up with Bender, a mischievous robot, and Leela, a one-eyed cyclops.  The three of them turn to Fry's only living relative, 149 year old Professor Farnsworth who is something of a mad scientist and operates a package delivery service in order to fund his experiments.  Working for the Professor at the package delivery service, Planet Express, is Hermes Conrad, a bureaucrat, Amy Wong, intern, and Doctor Zoidberg, the staff doctor.  Fry, Leela and Bender become the crew of the Planet Express ship and handle deliveries for the company, Leela being the captain, Fry the delivery boy (the same job he held in the 20th century), and Bender doing various jobs and eventually becoming the ships cook (despite the fact that as a robot he had no sense of taste).

The show was created by Matt Groening of The Simpsons fame and shares many characteristics with that show.  Despite the short run of the series as originally conceived it is generally considered to be one of the "smarter" animated shows when compared to "The Simpsons" and the likes of "Family Guy" and "American Dad".  Being set in the year 3000 allowed for a great deal of leeway in terms of characters, social and urban settings as well as plays on sci-fi material not available to other cartoons.  The creators and writers of the show didn't want to completely abandon topical material from this century however so they came up with a plot device that allowed them to incorporate current events and people, the technology to preserve heads in a jar.  Famous people from the past were preserved as heads in jars of liquid and were often central to episode plots, such as President Nixon being elected Earth President and Lucy Lui being used to clone robots.    Given the range of material Futurama could call on, past and future, it's no surprise that the show gained a loyal cult following, especially within the sci-fi community.

There were many running gags within the show and later episodes relied on material from past episodes, giving the show a sense of continuity and growth not often associated with other animated shows.  For instance, the Fry character is eventually revealed to have been intentionally frozen by a race of cute Niblonians, pet like creatures who have been around since the beginning of time, in order to eventually save the universe from a swarm of malevolent brains intent on it's destruction.  Leela progresses from being a one of a kind cyclops with no known origin to eventually finding out that her parents are a pair of loving mutants who live in the sewers of New New York.  Leela was the least mutated mutant ever born so her parents secretly left her at an orphanarium in the city in order that she might have a normal life compared to the other mutants.  These characters, as well as the others, are built upon gradually throughout the series, piece by piece, eventually weaving a complex storyline that needs to be followed from the beginning in order to fully understand storylines in later episodes.  Though it's not completely necessary to watch the episodes in order it is beneficial in order to understand inside jokes and references in later episodes.

Futurama was very well written and thought out, the humor in the show often relied on irony and was sometimes setup well in advance.  Plots or characters were often introduced in the beginning of an episode and then not referenced again until the end, when it would all come together in a surprisingly satisfying way.  The show was nominated for and won many awards, including and Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program" for the 2002 episode "Roswell That End's Well".

Despite not always showing up well in the ratings Futurama was generally considered to be one of the better animated shows of it's time which eventually helped bring it back to television.  Futurama was picked up for 26 new episodes in 2009 which are slated to start running on June 24th, 2010 at 10 P.M. on Comedy Central.  All of the original cast are slated to come back and voice the characters.  The four DVD movies that were released starting in November 2007 were a bit lackluster compared to the original shows but that may be due in part to the fact that each movie was designed to be eventually cut into four separate episodes each which hampered the overall quality and continuity of each movie.  The movies have yet to be release in their episodic format so it remains to be seen how well the individual episodes will turn out.  Many of the original writers are returning for the 26 new episodes, which will constitute the sixth season, so it's reasonable to expect the show to return to the creative high's it reached during it's first four seasons run.  Groening and the staff appear to be enthused about the show going forward, we can only hope that the network feels the same way and that Futurama refinds it's creative excellence and enjoys a long, sustained run.

Sad day for the Boilers

by pageian:

Purdue just lost Robbie Hummel for the rest of the season and quite possibly lost their chance of playing in the Final Four in their home state.  Hummel is as important to the Boilermakers as any player is to any other team but Purdue has enough depth to adjust.  Players like Keaton Grant and Chris Kramer need to step up on offense now, which Grant has already done the last three games.  If he can continue to score in double figures consistently then he can replace Hummel's offense.  The problem is going to be defense, rebounding and perhaps more importantly height on the inside.  Besides JuJaun Johnson the only other big player Purdue has that plays regularly was Hummel.  Losing him on the inside creates problems that perhaps don't show up in the box score like points do but are just as important.  It's easy to see the Boilers getting out rebounded by bigger teams now and perhaps have the other teams inside guys go off on them since Johnson can't cover everyone.  Hummel is generously listed as 6'8", he's probably closer to 6'6", but he still played inside well on defense and filled a lot of wholes that Purdue's bench is going to have a hard time covering.

All of which leads to another question, why doesn't Purdue have more big guys?  They have 13 guys listed on the roster as guards, 2 as forwards and 1 as a center.  Really, 13 guards?  Their "backup" forward, Patrick Bade is a 6'8" freshman who's played a total of 186 minutes this season.  So what happens now, start four guards and Johnson?  Start a freshman for the final three games of the season, the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament?  What other options do they have?  I guess it's something I'd like to know, why did Matt Painter construct his roster this way?  Did he purposely sign all those guards or did he lose out recruiting other big men and didn't have any other choice?  One way or the other it's put Purdue in a tough situation.  They can perhaps replace Hummel's offense but how are they going to replace him inside?

I still think Purdue has a good chance of winning the Big Ten outright and perhaps doing well in the Big Ten Tournament, if not winning that as well.  Their chances of a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament are probably gone though since it already seems like everyone in the media is itching to drop them in the rankings and/or move Syracuse in front of them.  They're the #3 ranked team in the country right now but whether they win or lose their next few games they're going to drop in the rankings just for losing Hummel.  How far will they go in the NCAA's without Hummel?  I'm guessing Sweet Sixteen, unless the selection committee somehow awards them a #1 seed (they won't, see what they did to Cincinnati in 2000 when they lost Kenyon Martin).  With a #1 seed I would guess they'd make it to the Elite Eight but no further.

It's too bad really, the trip to the Final Four was only an hour down I65 in Indy.