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.

Men of a Certain Age

by: pageian

TNT has a new series out called "Men of a Certain Age" featuring Ray Ramano.  It's not a comedy, rather it's a drama, or even more precisely a dramadey.  It's not specifically setup for humor but it does have it's humorous moments, the main draw of the show however is the relationship between three middle aged men, their careers and families.  Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher are the other two main characters in the show.

TNT seems to have a hit on their hands, along the lines of other off-network shows such as "Mad Men", though it's hard to imagine this show matching the heights "Mad Men" has found.  The show is set in LA with Ramano as the lead character, owner of a party store, divorced and with a gambling problem.  Bakula plays an actor who rarely has acting jobs and apparently has a peter-pan complex, refusing to grow up and take on the responsibilities of a normal adult.  Braugher is perhaps the most complex character of the three.  He plays a car salesman working at his fathers dealership, married to a loving and strong willed wife played by Lisa Gay Hamilton.  Their house is undergoing renovations and causing all kinds of problems for the family.  He struggles at the car dealership due to the fact that his father is particularly tough on him and he often has trouble with the realities of a job that doesn't fulfill him. 

Similar to "Mad Men" much of the appeal of MoaCA is made up of it's ambiance.  There's rarely any action or suspense on the show but it still manages to be extremely interesting and watchable.  Often times there will be scenes where characters don't talk but are shown doing normal, everyday things like waking up or driving to work.  Most plots revolve around the three main characters dealing with everyday things that we all go through in our lives.  Instead of inventing fantastical plots or unbelievable storylines every week MoaCA instead focuses on real things and delves into them on a level that is intended to develop the characters and explain to the audience what their motivations are for doing what they do.  It's an interesting concept, one that's certainly been done before but perhaps not as well.

Credit needs to be given to the writers of the show as well as the concept of it.  Often times what the characters say is not as important as how they say it or why.  You get the feeling watching the show that it was really well thought out, as if the concept and design of the show came first, the thoughts and meaning that it wanted to convey, and then the actual dialogue was added later in order to achieve those goals. 

Credit also needs to be given to the actors and actresses.  I've been critical of Scott Bakula in the past for his acting but in this show he does well, giving convincing performances.  Also, who knew Ray Ramano was such a good actor?  During his time on "Everybody Loves Raymond" he certainly grew as an actor and became more comfortable with what he was doing though you never got the impression that he felt he was an actor, never got the impression that he felt he belonged on the set with the likes of Brad Garrett, Patricia Heaton, Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts.  All that seems to be gone here though, Ramano gives perhaps the best performance on the show, he's believable and his acting really does a good job of portraying exactly what his character is going through.  He seems like a genuine human being.  Braugher also does an excellent job.  As mentioned earlier, his character has potentially the most complicated situations and Braugher, similar to Ramano, portrays perfectly his characters emotions and motivations.  You really get the feeling that he's just a human being, it's easy to forget that these guys are actors playing parts.  You don't need to suspend reality in order to believe what the characters are going through, it's all done so naturally that you might think that they're actually real people who your following through a camera.

"Men of a Certain Age" appears to be poised for a run of many seasons if the actors and creators are willing to follow through.  Ramano has said that it was his choice that the first season would have 10 episodes so it's apparent that things are relatively under his control so unless TNT decides to pull the plug for some reason then it would seem that the show will continue for as long as Ramano and his fellow actors and producers are interested.  Let's hope they stay interested and continue their creative and enjoyable show.

Air America goes bankrupt

Makes you wonder, wasn't anyone listening or are liberals just not very good at this capitalism thing?  That wouldn't surprise me, they certainly don't understand it.  And yeah, no one was listening either, that's one of the tenents of capitalism, the market will decide.  In a socialist society Air America would still be on the air even though no one was listening.  Multiply that a million times over for the market and then imagine how ineffective socialism would be on a nationwide scale.  Heck, we don't have to imagine, just look at communist Russia and it's bread lines.  That's socialism at it's finest folks.

So while capitalism works again and the liberal, socialist democrats get slapped in the face for the second time in a week keep in mind that all the talking heads will give their opinions on why Air America failed but the simple fact is that if people were listening they'd still be in business.  No market, no job.  I realize that's anti-socialist, but it works and it works well.

The Tonight Show Travesty

by pageian:
Conan Vs. Jay. Looks like Conan is giving up to save the integrity of the show. Thing is, with him gone who's going to care about the Tonight Shows integrity? Leno is a nice guy but he's wrong here. He should have rescheduled after the Tonight Show or gone to a different network (Fox?). Get the feeling that the Tonight Show is never going to be the same, likely because of selfishness on Leno's part.

What's wrong with the Boilermakers?

by: pageian



Purdue men's basketball just lost their third game in a row after opening the season 14-0 and getting as high as #4 in the rankings.  Purdue didn't lose a game in non-conference play, beating everyone they played, every place they played, including two teams ranked in the top ten and undefeated themselves at the time.  The Boilers are only 2-3 in Big Ten play though, their only wins coming at lowly Iowa and against Minnesota at Mackey Arena.  They've lost to Wisconsin on the road, Ohio State at home and now Northwestern on the road.



The Northwestern loss is particularly troubling.  The Wildcats are perennial doormats in the Big Ten and the Boilers usually handle them easily.  The Wildcats are looking good this year but most analyst's still felt they didn't have much of a chance of getting into the NCAA tournament though.  Now?  They just beat a team that's ranked 6th in the nation (though that will certainly change Monday when the new rankings come out) and they're beating teams they're supposed to be as well as some they aren't.  After this win they have to be taken seriously as a tournament team.


The problem for the Boilers appears to be the inside play of star forward JuJuan Johnson.  Johnson put up 25 points and 10 rebounds against then unbeaten and 6th ranked West Virginia on January 1st after only getting 6 points and 4 rebounds at Iowa.  In fact since the start of Big Ten play Johnson has only scored in double figures once with 16 against Minnesota.  Johnson has a total of 40 points in five Big Ten games for an average of only 8 points, he's also averaging only 6.4 rebounds in Big Ten play.  In non-conference play he averaged 15.3 points and 7 rebounds.  He's obviously dropped off since league play started and since he's really the only big man Purdue has, or at least the only inside player they have they've suffered because of it.  The Big Ten is a physical league, perhaps the most physical of all the major leagues in the NCAA's.  Johnson is lanky and athletic but he's undersized in the Big Ten and can be pushed around and gotten into foul trouble by some of the bigger, stronger guys in the league, which is exactly what's been happening lately.


Purdue coach Matt Painter has done an excellent job recruiting since he took over for Gene Keady in 2005, yet one thing he appears to have overlooked is a big, physical inside presence that's particularly necessary in the Big Ten.  Painter has recruited good athletes and good basketball players but his team has 11-guards, 4-forwards and only one center, Johnson who's actually listed as a forward-center.  Johnson is 6'10" but only weights 215 pounds.  The only big guys Purdue has on the bench are freshman Patrick Bade, who's listed as a 6'8", 235 pound forward and Kelsey Barlow who's listed as a forward but at 6'5", 199 pounds he's actually more of a big guard, small forward type player.


Purdue simply doesn't have enough strength inside to dominate in the Big Ten.  They are more of an athletic, finesse team that wins when they shoot the ball well and play defense well.  Since they've gotten into the Big Ten part of their schedule they're getting pushed around more than they're used to and as a result their record has suffered.  Three losses in a row might not knock them out of the rankings but it's going to knock them out of the top ten for sure and probably ends their hope of a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.  There's still plenty of time though.  Not only have they played a tough Big Ten schedule so far, with a tough game on the road coming up at Illinois, they've played some good conference schools as well.  They haven't gotten any breaks in the schedule.  When those come, expect the Boilers to regroup and figure out what needs to be done.  Then they'll focus on fixing their problems, or at least focus on working with those problem so that they can win games in the league.  At the end of the conference schedule they'll be there, maybe a game or two back but close to the top, and hopefully they'll be primed and playing their best basketball of the season at conference tournament time (like they did last year when they won the conference tournament) and put themselves in a positions for a good seed in the NCAA tournament.  Given the success Purdue has had the past few years and even earlier this year I think it's fair to expect nothing less.


Purdue is still a good team, they've just run into some teams lately that played great games and may have figured out how to exploit Purdue on the inside.  Painter and the team will work on that and figure out a way to counter it.  Getting it taken care of now will only benefit them when it come time for the tournaments.  And hey, if they don't win the league now that they have 3 losses in league play, I can live with that if it means they got their problems exposed and fixed and are going to be a better team going forward because of it.



Boiler Up!

Mystery object to whizz by earth on Wednesday

 
Scientist don't know what it is, an asteroid, space junk?  Something is going to pass within 80,000 miles of earth and they don't know what it is?  Seems strange.  It's 33-50 feet wide and it's 80,000 miles out (at it's closest), doesn't seem like a good candidate to be space junk.... at least not space junk from Earth (alien space junk maybe?).  If we assume it's an asteroid that would explain it's mysterious origin but it's a bit disturbing that something that big remained unknown until now and it still can't be identified.  At least they're saying that if it is an asteroid it's tiny, too small to cause much damage even if it does hit.  I assume most of it would burn up in the atmosphere before it reached the earth.  Hmm, maybe it's a Borg scout ship, or maybe a miniature Deathstar?

MLB Hall of Fame welcomes Andre Dawson

Andre Dawson was voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame on Wednesday, the only player who earned the required 75 percent of the vote to get in.  Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven fell just short with 73.7 and 74.2 percent respectively.  Dawson, who spent his career with four different teams, the Montreal Expos, Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox and the Florida Marlins will likely go into the hall as an Expo, though that's still not known yet.  The Hall of Fame now chooses which team the players go in as ever since Dave Winfield was offered money and jobs by the San Diego Padres and New York Yankees to choose their cap for his enshrinement.  Dawson spent the majority of his career in Montreal but gained perhaps his greatest fame as a member of the Cubs.


Cub fans everywhere love and respect Dawson for his time with the team as well as for how he came to be a Cub.  Desperate to get away from the artificial turf of Montreal's Olympic Stadium Dawson gave the Cubs a blank contract before the 1987 season and told them to fill in the amount.  The Cubs paid Dawson $700,000 that year, a more than 30% pay cut from his 1986 salary, yet Dawson went on to win his only MVP that year, hitting .287/.328/.568 with an OPS of .896.  He hit 49 home runs and drove in 137 RBI's, numbers too big for the MVP voters to pass up even though his OPS and OBP were generally lacking for an MVP candidate.  In those days statistics like OPS weren't available and OBP wasn't valued as it is now.  There were players in 1987 who had superior average stats to Dawson yet his league leading number of home runs and RBI's carried the day. 


Dawson went on the spend six years with the Cubs after spending 11 in Montreal (where he won the Rookie of the Year award in 1977).  He finished up his career with two years in Boston and then two more in Florida where he suffered from injuries and compiled only 307 at-bats.  For his career he ended up with 438 home runs, 1591 RBI's and 2774 hits while hitting .274 with an on-base percentage of .323, slugging percentage of .482 and an ops of .806.  He won 8 gold gloves, one MVP, Rookie of the Year and was an 8-time all-star.


Bert Blyleven missed the cut in his 13th year on the ballot and has two more chances of getting into the hall.  Given how his vote total has increased from year to year it's almost a given that he'll get voted in next year, and if not he surely will the year after, his last chance.  Alomar was considered a great candidate to get in on his first try given that he's one of the better second baseman to ever play the game.  Voters didn't make him a first ballot hall of famer likely due to an ugly incident in 1996 when he spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck.


It's my opinion that the biggest injustice in the voting this year isn't that Blyleven or Alomar have to wait at least another year.  They'll get in eventually.  To me the vote total of Jack Morris is the biggest disappointment in that it's still going up.  Jack Morris won a lot of games and pitched some classic playoff games yet for all his apparent fame wasn't really a great pitcher.  His career ERA+, a measure of how much better a pitchers era is compared to league average, was only 105, meaning Morris's era was only 5% better than a league average pitcher throughout his career.  That to me doesn't sound like a hall of famer and it doesn't raise the standards for the hall.  In fact, if Morris is eventually voted in he'll go in with the highest career era of any pitcher in the hall, by a lot.  People like to point out that Morris won more games than anyone else in the 1980's, to which I reply, who won the most games from 1981-1991, or 1977-1987?  See, wining the most games in the 1980's is completely meaningless and arbitrary.  Unless voters are willing to vote in players who won the most games for every ten-year period than they shouldn't vote Morris in just because he happened to win more for a certain 10-year period than anyone else.  It's meaningless.


There are other injustices in the voting this year, Edgar Martinez only received 36.2% of the vote, Tim Raines only got 30.4% and Fred McGriff only 21.5%.  It's quite likely that Martinez will eventually get in though it's starting to look like Raines is going to have a tough time even though he's clearly one of the great hitters and base stealers of  his era and perhaps the second best leadoff man of all time behind Rickey Henderson.  It's also a shame that Alan Trammell only got 22.4% of the vote and it's pretty clear now that not enough writers think of him as a hall of famer even though he's perhaps one of the ten best shortstops of all time.



In all it's not a bad year.  At least Andre Dawson is safely in the hall where he belongs.  Even though some other players have to wait and others have vote totals they don't deserve, one way or the other, at least the voters finally got it right for Andre Dawson.  Now if only Ron Santo would get in with the veterans vote next year all the Cubs who are eligible and good enough will be in.