Everything Else

Friday Foofaraw: Father’s Day

By Sam Fels 1464 0

It’s become something of a tradition around here, but if any of you are new I’ll give you the short story. I am not the only writer in the Fels family, but I am certainly the worst. My father George takes the crown, and you could give me another 100 years and I’ll never get in his ballpark. Dad was the back-page columnist for Billiard’s Digest for over 30 years, and on Fathers’ Day weekend I like to share some of my favorite works of his. Today, I present “When Jack Played Mizerak,” a hilarious story of the time Dad’s best friend got to play one of the world’s best pool players at the time, Steve Mizerak. Enjoy, and Happy Fathers’ Day to all. 

And yes, that is my father as the picture. Now you know. 

When Jack Played Mizerak

By George Fels
[Reprinted from February 1994]

Hey, Jack. You wanna play Mizerak?”

As either of my late parents would shriek in bitterness if they were able, I was a speech major in school and therefore attuned to how something is said as well as to what. And there was something I heard in my best friend’s obscenely proud “Yeah!” that gave me unrest.

The setting, in the early ’70s, was innocent enough: Open a commercial billiard rooms with Brunswick tables and among the perks was an exhibition by one of their advisory staff as part of your grand opening. At the time, that staff included Steve Mizerak, and while it’s sheer conjecture as to when the great player’s game might have peaked, the rolls weren’t exactly going against him back then. Four consecutive U.S. Open straight pool crowns, two World Championships not long after that, plus newfound television advertising stardom. Big Miz had Big Mo. Jack Gunne sounded all too eager to thwart that momentum and I leaped into the breach to lend what I must have thought was assistance.

“Now I hope you understand, Jack,” I tried, “that there’s a sort of protocol to this. The challenger is expected to play wide open — no defense — so that the champion can show what he can do; and the champion is expected to give the challenger some turns at the table, so he can do some scoring too. The theory is that the challenger can’t win anyhow, so they might as well put on a good show. That’s how it’s supposed to go.”

“Bleep that,” Jack Gunne reflected thoughtfully. “I’m playin’ t’ win!” “No, ox,” I said with miraculous patience, born of utter despair. “There is no winning. It’s 150 points and he can run out. You can’t. It’s just that simple. He can take it easy on you, or he can pulverize you.” Now Jack had two favorite sextets of words. One was, “I can’t play; I’m too upset.” And the other was, “I don’t want to hear it.” On this occasion, he chose the latter. While it is well beneath me to propose such a stereotype as all Irish are stubborn, I can assert with certainty that this one was, who made up for a great many who are not.

But it would be just as easy to judge him by his competitive streak, which was at least a kissing cousin to his stubbornness. Win or lose — usually lose — Jack was still ready to play every day without fail. His theory was that pool was the only aspect of his life where bad luck evinced itself at all, so it might as well be exorcised. And his luck at pool was genuinely horrible, almost as if predestined. He was easily capable of running 30 or 40 balls, but it was much more like him to luck into a way not to run the balls and jovially broadcast his misfortune to everyone else. Opportunities got away from Jack, who played pool very much as he lived, which frequently seems to be the case.

On the night of the exhibition, however, he was the champion of uncharacteristic conservativism. And when he ducked his cue ball behind the stack after sinking the match’s first six balls, with other shots still available, I distinctly heard one of the several hundred spectators mutter, “Aw, Jesus.” Mizerak gave Jack a studied stony stare but returned the safety in silence. Jack proceeded to take all the pace out of the match. Run a few, duck; return a duck; duck again. Brought to the table all too often merely to roll out of safeties and back into them, Mizerak was showing his lower teeth within the match’s first four racks, no sanguine sign. By the eighth rack, he was talking to himself, even more ominous.

However, just as it is said that the elephant schleps through the jungle but gets where he’s going all the same, the game did make grudging progress. Down 90-60 or thereabouts, Jack was still within that attainable 30-ball run when, to add a bit of local color, he maneuvered the Mighty Miz into the game’s ultimate humiliation, three consecutive scratches. Mizerak and the 3 ball were the same shade of red. He rebroke the full rack of balls; Jack disdained safety play for once and vaingloriously slammed an object ball into the rail, breaking open many others.

Having watched his worthy adversary flush billiards exhibition decorum down the tubes long since, Mizerak was not about to restore any. Speaking directly to Jack but clearly meant to be heard by one and all, Mizerak orated grandly, “Well, you can just siddown now!”

True to character, Jack remained standing through the first 45 or so of the inevitable 75-and-out, as though he were in his regular lunch hour sessions with me; and Mizerak made it a point to make eye contact after every one of those balls. “Six!” Plop. Stare. “Thirteen!” Plop. Stare. And he began to swagger and call his next shot position while the balls were still rolling; his A-game moves. “I can’t play anyway,” Jack confided to me at one point, enlarging his customary utterance by one word. “I’m too upset.”

Finally, he melted back into the chair for the run’s last 30 balls, and circulation returned to the audience’s collective buns. The next day, the Chicago Tribune primly reported that “Steve Mizerak, Perth Amboy, N.J., defeated Jack Gunne of Chicago, 150-58, in a pocket billiards exhibition.” Jack had the clipping laminated and mounted in a professionally drawn caricature of himself; his “thought bubble” read, “Brutal. Just brutal.”

Jack’s gone now, dead at 46; it’s probably only Mizerak and I who remember the game, and maybe not even that many. What I remember most was thinking just how much of you ultimately shows up in your pool game, whether you plan it that way or not; and how watching Jack lose like that was probably the hardest thing our friendship would ever ask me to do. Until I lost him too. As things turned out, his luck wasn’t that terrific outside pool either.

Baseball

Is It In My Head?

By Sam Fels 1484 0

You couldn’t have scripted a better baseball game than last night’s Cubs-Dodgers one to come on the same day as Ken Rosenthal wrote this on The Athletic. 10 runs scored, all on home runs. That goes along with the 17 strikeouts combined by each team, which these days isn’t even that high of a number. A lot of days one team reaches that on its own, but it’s not too hard to remember a day when that didn’t happen.

Many pundits and professional viewers have been complaining about the lack of action in baseball for a couple years now. And the numbers prove that it’s become a Three True Outcome game (homer, walk, strikeout). There are definitely less balls in play. And now we just have homers to make anything happen. We have more of them than we know what to do with. Or do we?

Certainly, over the past two seasons especially I’ve noticed how the game has changed. But would I notice as much if there weren’t writers like Rosenthal or Joe Sheehan (both of whom I really like, I have to point out) and many others (which I don’t) pointing it out seemingly daily? I might, but then I might not. But when you have someone screaming every day that “Nothing is happening in these games!!” surely you look more for the action that isn’t happening.

If I were in a vacuum, at least a media one, would the lack of balls in play really bother me? After all, I enjoy watching pitchers with overpowering stuff. It’s fun to watch someone blow 97 MPH by hitters or send them spiraling into the ground like that thing the Ninja Turtles used to get to the Earth’s core to bother Shredder and Krang with a deflector-shield curve/slider. And every baseball fan enjoys watching one of those get sent to the goddamn moon. They say that too much of a good thing is bad, but I’ve never been convinced. Sure, I love a bases loaded double or triple too, but were those all that common 10 years ago? Their uniqueness is what makes them special, at least in part. I’m not sure I get that bored of homers, and I don’t think I’m alone.

So do the baseballs being golf balls ruin my enjoyment? A touch, but rarely. Bellinger’s first homer last night felt a bit cheap, because even he didn’t think he hit it very well. And then it sails over the wall the opposite way in Dodger Stadium at night, which is supposed to be really hard to do. I’m biased, because I’m a Cubs fan who loathes the Dodgers and is starting to feel the same way about Bellinger individually, but that was one that had me looking side-eyed at. But I don’t find myself doing that too often. The explosion of homers doesn’t feel like Wrigley with the wind blowing out, where harmless flies are carried out as hitters slam their bats down and then sheepishly jog around the bases. You can’t base anything on feel, but it feels like it’s just well hit balls that probably would have gone out anyway going even farther out.

The only thing about the juiced-ball that I find strange is MLB throwing its hands up and claiming to not know anything about it or not having anything to do with it. They’re either lying or stupid, possibly both. How could you not be in total control of like, the entire center of the game? And if weren’t then why aren’t you now? Hell, the NFL went to war with one of its own franchises over the condition of its ball, and that’s a sport where they let teams control their owns spheres/spheroids.

Do fans care about there being too many homers? I wonder. Sure, attendance and viewership is down, and maybe that’s the only argument you need. But that could just as easily be about so many teams not even trying, and one of your truly good teams playing in Tampa. What would Baltimore’s attendance be if they had the Rays team? I’m not sure there’s a large swath of fans who have been turned off because there’s a lot of homers. Football has a lot of touchdowns, doesn’t seem to bother them much.

I guess my other complaint about a juiced ball is it doesn’t fit in with the natural evolution of the game. We know hitters are trying to lift the ball more, pitchers throw harder, shifting defenses, all that. So if more homers were only due to that, you would just say that’s how the game has grown and eventually will shift again when more pitchers are at the top of the zone and more hitters have to work with the open spaces they have. The game using a Titlelist as a ball causes all of that to be slowed or stopped completely, because more guys can just hit it over shifts and walls, deservedly or not. Homers would be on the rise without the Slazengers because of a change of style, but they wouldn’t be like this and it wouldn’t feel as artificial.

It’s funny, because writers like Rosenthal bemoan how attendance is down and baseball is falling behind, and then spend just as much space telling you why the game sucks. And I’ll agree with them that it is fun to watch players like Baez run the bases or Kiermaier or even Bellinger make plays in the field. And they’re getting less chance to do so. But you wonder how many defensive plays that bring people out of their seats are being sacrificed for homers that also bring people out of their seats. After all, more balls in play will result in routine fly balls far more than the diving catch in the gap or the nailing of a runner at second. I would take some convincing that this is what the routine fan is crying out for.

Something tells me a normal baseball would still see a lot of home runs being hit. After all, these are better athletes than they’ve ever been with faster bat-speed turning around pitches that are being hurled at greater speeds than ever before. It’s probably easier to get a 95-MPH fastball to go far than an 88-MPH one.

I notice games like last night’s now, and I definitely remark how different it is than what I grew up with. I don’t know that has to be a bad thing, and I don’t know how much I’d notice if everyone wasn’t yelling for me to notice. I guess I’m undecided, and I would guess most fans are too, despite what those with the pens and microphones keep telling us to think.

 

Everything Else

Offseason Trade Target: Nazem Kadri

By Sam Fels 2454 0

Before we get started, we didn’t do one of these yesterday because talking about hockey didn’t feel right yesterday. When you’re in this morass, do you really want to even think about next season right now? But anyway, this is our charge now so let’s resume.

Ok, Nazem Kadri is a complete penis. He’s more likely to do something horribly damaging to your team when it matters most than help it. In fact, had he kept his head on straight for once the Leafs might have actually beaten the Bruins. Any future infraction from this dickhead is going to result in a long suspension, and seeing as how you can’t trust him to learn or trust your substitute teacher of a coach to straighten him out, the risks are quite clear.

But here’s the thing. When he’s not trying reenact the Battle Of Saxony by himself, Nazem Kadri is a hell of a player. He has four 50+ point seasons on his resume (one was at that pace in 2013), and he’s done that mostly taking the dungeon shifts as a checking center either as the #3 center behind Matthews and Bozak or Tavares this year. He won 55% of his draws this year, which you know will still make some people in the Hawks’ front office tumescent. He put up 44 points this year mostly playing with a corpse in Marleau and something called Connor Brown. He’ll produce with just about anyone.

And the Hawks have a need, whether they want to admit it or not. As it stands right now, you don’t really want Jonathan Toews taking a massive amount of draws and shift-starts in his own end. But the Hawks only have one other player who can do that in David Kampf. Strome needs to be completely sheltered, and really so does Anisimov until you finally get him off this roster. Swapping in Kadri and punting Arty to wherever will take him for an Edible Arrangement gives you two centers you can leash to the d-zone, allowing Toews to really focus on the offensive end. At this point in his career, it’s one or the other for the most part.

Second, Kadri is cheap. His cap-hit is essentially the same as Anisimov’s, but you get a ton more. You get more skill, more speed, and a far better defensive player. Sure, he’s signed for three more years but at 28 he’s not likely to fall off a cliff before it’s up. And even if the offense starts to dry up you still have a pretty hellacious checking center on your hands. And there’s really nothing in the system at center unless the Hawks take Turcotte (which they’re going to), but you can worry about that shuffle whenever Turcotte is ready. Or you could just not take Turcotte if you swing for Kadri here.

Where this all falls apart is that the Hawks don’t really have anything the Leafs want. The Leafs need NHL-ready d-men. If they were run by a complete jackass, as they were in the past, you could probably really sell them on the offensive production and the cheapness of Gustafsson, which would still allow them to make moves considering he makes nothing. But Kyle Dubas probably isn’t a complete moron. Prospects don’t do the Leafs a whole lot of good as they are all about NOW NOW NOW, unless you could involved a third team for them to swing those prospects to. If you were looking for an actual landing spot for Keith, you might be able to sell him on this given Babcock and their chances but I don’t know that you could sell the Leafs on it. But there’s been no whisper that Keith has asked out or that the Hawks have asked him if he wants out.

Yes, Kadri wouldn’t solve your top six winger deficiency. But if you’re going 19-17-43-64 down the middle you can probably live with some third-line winger moonlighting on the top six. No, he doesn’t help the defense but his cap number is low enough, especially with any jettisoning of Anisimov, that you would retain all the flexibility to do something about that as well.

Yes, the gray matter is a concern. The hope would be that even with an overmatched coach, a leadership stable of Toews, Keith, Seabrook would keep him in a line a ton better than whatever it was in Toronto. The Hawks have made that bet before.

It hinges on just how sick the Leafs are of his bullshit. You get the sense if you could have made this trade in April they would have given him to you for a song. But now that time has let everything cool, it’ll be harder. But it makes sense, if the Hawks want to get creative.

Baseball

Series Preview – Cubs vs. Dodgers: You Wanted The Best…

By Sam Fels 1270 0

vs.

RECORDS: Cubs 38-29   Dodgers 45-23

GAMETIMES: Thursday and Friday 9:10, Saturday 8:10, Sunday 6:05

TV: NBCSN Thursday, WGN Friday, ABC Saturday, ESPN Sunday

WE KNOW YOU LOVE LA, THERE’S NOTHING LEFT TO SAY: True Blue LA

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Jon Lester vs. Clayton Kershaw

Kyle Hendricks vs. Rich Hill

Yu Darvish vs. Walker Buehler

Jose Quintana vs. Hyun-Jin Ryu

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – RF

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Willson Contreras – C

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

Addison Russell – 2B

David Bote – 3B (batting 9th)

PROBABLE DODGERS LINEUP

Enrique Hernandez – LF

Justin Turner – 3B

David Freese – 1B

Cody Bellinger – RF

Chris Taylor – SS

Max Muncy – 2B

Alex Verdugo – CF

Austin Barnes – C

 

The only thing that could make a frustrating series in Colorado with it’s Peewee’s Playhouse rules is backing that up by having to deal with the National League’s best team for four nights. Which makes it pretty damn tough to get out of this road trip over .500, as that would mean taking three of four in a place where the home team is 25-7. Good times all around.

So where to start with the Dodgers? Maybe Cody Bellinger doing a damn fine Mike Trout impression for two and a half months?That’s what he’s been doing, cutting down his strikeouts while losing none of his power and becoming a plus right fielder even though he’s a first baseman (still convinced he has rohypnol in his house though). There’s Joc Pederesen cutting down his strikeouts and still providing the power he always did. There’s latest lab project Max Muncy providing offensive force from a variety of positions. Or maybe Justin Turner and his dependable dominance. Perhaps we should stop.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s twofold: One, the Cubs are catching them right after Cory Seager had his latest twang and he’s out for a month at least. Second, the Dodgers effectiveness against lefties is still not nearly as strong as the other side, and the Cubs will be tossing two of them. That brings Enrique Hernandez into the lineup and Chris Taylor, and both have been not good. But it’s not much, as both Muncy and Bellinger still hit lefties really well, Turner is still around…and well that’s enough.

Going to the rotation won’t provide any solace, as the Dodgers have five starters with sub-4.00 ERAs. And Kershaw has maybe been their third or fourth best starter as he ages. It’s a wonder how anyone hits Buehler at all given his stuff, and Rich Hill is still here TO SHOW YOU HOW MUCH IT MEANS TO HIM GODDAMMIT HE CARES SO MUCH CAN’T YOU SEE HOW MUCH HE FUCKING CARES GOD HE CARES SO MUCH. Ryu has been the best starter in the NL. So even if they don’t bash your skull in with the bats, they’ll probably smother you with the pitching.

If there’s been anything resembling a bugaboo, it’s the pen. So they’ll be competing with the Cubs for an arm or two in the trade market, using pieces from their system that’s become a goddamn assembly line. Kenley Jensen hasn’t been as automatic, though still very hard to break through on, and the bridge to him has been rickety. Joe Kelly got a contract to solve that even though he’s always sucked. Pedro Baez has been his usual highly effective while making everyone understand Nietzche while doing so. Ross Stripling has been a touch unlucky, while Yimi Garcia has been straight up bad. But generally, they only have to get 3-6 outs per night which just about anyone can manage, even Dave Roberts.

So yeah, four with all that. The Cubs got two of three from the Dodgers in April, before they ascended to whatever plane they’re on now. There are no such things as markers or measuring sticks in a season this long, but there’s more than a small chance the Cubs and Dodgers will renew their blood feud in the NLCS come October. It would be refreshing for us, not the players, if they looked like they belonged on the same field this weekend. It’s always fascinating to see Kyle Hendricks go against a lineup this high-powered, and it’ll be another test for Darvish.

No one said this will be fun.

Baseball

Dodgers Spotlight: Another Weapon They Didn’t Need

By Sam Fels 1297 0

It’s bad enough that the Dodgers have a weaponized, flexible, young lineup that’s been punching holes in the ozone all season. The Dodgers have run roughshod over the National League now for basically two and a half seasons. Sure, last season’s record and needing a 163rd game to win the division doesn’t sound like it, but any of their underlying stats told you that they were the class of the Senior Circuit. They apparently are determined to set that record straight this season.

In the past couple seasons, the Dodgers rotation has been good, but beyond Clayton Kershaw it had been more to the functional side than dominant. Perhaps that’s what kept them from capping it all off with a World Series wins, as true nuclear lineups like the Astros and Red Sox essentially pummeled them.

Not so anymore. Kershaw doesn’t even have to be Kershaw anymore, and they’re still rocking five starters with ERAs under 4.00. Walker Buehler promised this last year, Rich Hill infuriatingly has been this effective his whole tenure there. But Hyun-Jin Ryu is the real surprise. Then again, the real surprise is that he’s been upright for more than four or five starts.

Ryu hasn’t made 30 starts in six seasons, and he’s only crossed 20 twice in the five seasons since. So taking the ball every fifth day already this season is something of a win. And of course, when he is, no one has been able to touch him. He currently has a microchip of an ERA of 1.36, a WHIP of 0.80, and a FIP of 2.62. All of which lead the National League (he’s second in FIP behind Scherzer barely) and make Ryu your clubhouse leader for the Cy Young.

Ryu has been using a sinker more often this year instead of his fastball, but it’s his fastball that is showing a heightened effectiveness. Whereas in the past hitters managed a .283 average against his fastball, it’s only .203 now. Ryu is getting more whiffs and foul balls off it, but the contact is just about the same. But Ryu seems to be combatting the new swing planes of hitters by using it only in the upper part of the zone. See for yourself:

Another change is that Ryu is using his change more. He’s throwing it a quarter of the time, up from 18% last year. That’s how he’s been getting all the grounders, as nearly 60% of the changes that are put in play end up with grass stains. It’s become his go-to, as he throws it more than any other pitch with two strikes.

There is an element of mirrors to Ryu’s season so far. He’s got a .248 BABIP, which is some 40 points below his career average. And he’s getting a 94 left-on-base percentage, which clearly won’t last. The Dodgers have a great infield defense of course, so the higher number of grounders should lower the BABIP. But more of those runners will score. Ryu’s 1.6% BB% is simply ridiculous, and would be the lowest since Carlos Silva’s 1.2% in 2005 and no other marks since 1980. Maybe he can keep it up, but it hasn’t been done in a very long time or at all.

Combined with Buehler, Kershaw, and Hill, the Dodgers have a rotation that can slice through anyone in a playoff series, which obscures perhaps their one mini-weakness which is the bridge to Kenley Jansen (who hasn’t been his normal self this year). As if they didn’t have everything already.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets – Saying Goodbye To The ’18-19 Boston Bruins

By Sam Fels 2407 0

You fucking fuckwits.

One of the reasons that most everyone hates the Patriots is that the path always seems to make itself in front of them. Not only are they ahead of the game, but their division has had unmatched and an almost incomprehensible incompetence and asshoolery for over a decade. Which means the Pats get six wins every year automatically to start, which means they only have to find five or six out of the other 10 to play at home through the playoffs. Just their aura has turned everyone closest to them into unidentifiable goo.

That’s what befell the Bruins here. Must be a Boston thing. The juggernaut in their own division broke all their ribs trying to fellate themselves in the first round, while the Bruins drew the one team that has such a mental block about them all they have to do is stand still and watch the doofuses on the other bench speak in tongues and break their backs doing some sort of seance. From there all they had was playoff neophytes through to the Final, ones that were getting nosebleeds from the rarified air they hadn’t experienced before. All too easy.

And then all it was in the Final was a team that didn’t belong. That didn’t know what they were doing there and kept turning around to find the relief of someone telling them to get out of there. The Bruins had 11 days off, a gift this time of year for nothing else but to stuff Patrice Bergeron’s organs back out of his legs where they seem to keep falling during any playoff run.

And yet they kept making it harder. Long stretches of trying to do the Humpty dance at the offensive blue line instead of just getting it deep and seeing if the Blues defense could get it out, which they can’t. The false impression that Zdeno Chara can do anything any more, which he can’t. Another Brad Marchand disappearance (and we’ll get back to this fraudulent shit weasel in a second). Bergeron injury. We’ve seen it all before. It’s the script.

And yet the Bruins had it in their hands. They’d engineered what should have been the Blues-iest moment in history, deflating that sweat-stained and illiterate balloon and party they were so ready to have. Game 7 at home, after pulling the pin. All they had to do was basically show up and not fuck up. All they had to do was bury the puck in a three-quarters open net instead of firing it back into the guts of a scrambling Jordan Binnington.

But that’s what the Bruins, and Marchand, did. It was easier to score, and would have changed the game and series. But this is June, which means it’s when Brad Marchand turns into a gaseous cloud.

Here’s Marchand’s record in his last two final appearances. One 5-on-3 goal, one empty net goal. That’s it. 13 games, and the supposed best left winger in the game can’t be found when it matters most with the a space telescope. Here, let’s revisit his coup-de-fuckstick:

I don’t know what’s best/worst. His Roger Dorn Ole bullshit at the blue line or his “Fuck it it’s your problem now” shuffle off to the bench with all of seven seconds left. This is Brad Marchand when it counts. Enjoy paying him until he’s David Backes II.

Here’s a list of teams to lose two Finals since the Great Lockout of ’05: Boston.

Congrats, it’s what you’ve always wanted, your own exclusive club where you can chew a truck-full of Skoal, pretend the Dropkicks are good and represent you in anyway, and talk about how Cam Neely could still score 50 in this league (that is if the league hadn’t been “pussified,” which is definitely how Bruins fans and execs described it). We know what happens here. You’ll learn all the wrong lessons because you still let Mike Milbury hang around for some godforsaken reason. Despite your success the past two years based on a quick defense and playing as fast as possible, along with Bergeron’s genius, you’ll conclude it’s because you’re not tough enough. You’ll let your BarfStool fandom bully you into thinking this. You know it to be true. Here comes Wayne Simmonds and Braydon Coburn. Fucking book it. This is the only organization that could double-down on a Backes signing, and they will.

You’ll blame Tuukka Rask, and finally break him when he gives up three goals in a period in the first week of October. If he has any sense he’ll pull a Patrick Roy right after Kevin Paul Dupont belches up his column questioning his heart, and then he’ll go on to win a Conn Smythe with the Flames. It’s what he deserves. It’s what you deserve.

It couldn’t have been any simpler, and you could have saved us from this great plague. You made every mistake possible and yet it was still there for you. The Blues kept tossing you the Cup, the one you kept chanting you wanted, and the Bruins kept receiving it like a person seeing a 16-inch softball for the first time.

I’ll tell you what happens now. You’ll lose to the Leafs next year. Everything’s broken, and you broke it. The gates are open, and everyone is coming for theirs. That’s if you don’t return to your natural state and getting fetal for the Canadiens in the first round. And then Krejci, Marchand, and Bergeron will be too old. There’s nothing behind them. This was it for you. You can’t fuck up a chance like this and think you’ll ever get another one. Hockey may be random and weird and stupid, but it doesn’t allow for that kind of compassion. It will exact its pound of flesh.

Also your biggest celebrity fans are either the leader of the most racist, misogynist sports empire in the world, a comedian who stole all of his stuff from Bill Hicks, or some dipshit actor who somehow keeps drugging Emily Blunt into believing he’s either talented or handsome. How perfect.

So in the words of Jon Hamm, perhaps the only good thing about St. Louis:

 

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Yankees at White Sox: Blood Money

By Andy Jonathan 1276 0

  VS  

Records:  Yankees 41-25  White Sox:  32-34

Gametimes: Thurs/Fri/Sat 7:10pm.  Sunday: 1:10

TV: NBCSN

The Evil Empire: PinstripeAlley

Probable Starters:

Thursday:  JA Happ vs Ivan Nova

Friday:  CC Sabathia vs Lucas Giolito

Saturday: TBD vs Reynaldo Lopez

Sunday: Masahiro Tanaka vs Odrisamer Despaigne

PROBABLE LINEUPS

YANKEES

1. DJ LeMahieu (2B)

2. Aaron Hicks (CF)

3. Luke Voit (DH)

4. Gary Sanchez (C)

5. Didi Gregorius (SS)

6. Clint Frazier (RF)

7. Kendrys Morales (1B)

8. Gio Urshela (3B)

9. Brett Gardner (LF)

 

SOX

1.  Leury Garcia (CF)

2. Tim Anderson (SS)

3. Jose Abreu (1B)

4. James McCann (C)

5. Eloy Jimenez (LF)

6. Yonder Alonso (DH) (SIGH)

7. Jose Rondon (3B)

8. Yolmer Sanchez (2B)

9. Ryan Cordell (RF)

 

The Evil Empire comes to town for a 4 game set this weekend, with the Yankees splitting a double header against their crosstown counterparts the Mets this past Tuesday, with them banging out 16 runs between the two games.  The Yankees haven’t had as much luck with the win column in June, constantly flip flopping with the Rays for first place in the division.  That hasn’t stopped them from hitting the shit out of the ball during that span, however.

This is a different Yankees team than the one that visited back in April.  While Giancarlo “Mike” Stanton and Aaron Judge are still on the IL along with Luis Severino the rest of the team has mostly gotten healthier.  The replacements for the ones that haven’t continue to hit at a prodigious pace, with DJ Lethal LeMahieu leading the way with his .316 average and 47 RBIs.  Doughboy Luke Voit and Gary Sanchez are pummeling the ball right now, with a combined 37 home runs between the two of them.  With the return of Didi Gregorious to the lineup after Tommy John surgery there aren’t too many weak spots in the lineup as it stands right now other than Brett Gardner, and he’ll get punted to the bench when Stanton comes back in the next week or two.

As far as their pitching staff goes, this unit is currently anchored down by Masa Tanaka who currently has an ERA that sits in the mid 3’s.  James Paxton had strung together a few solid starts in a row before the wheels came off against the Mets on Tuesday.  He didn’t make it out of the 3rd inning while giving up 6 runs.  He got booed off the mound by the New York “faithful”, and may have his turn in the rotation skipped as a result.  Personal favorite CC Sabathia is also still here, the retirement train still chugging along with a 3.66 ERA.  JA Happ is still struggling to string together decent starts, and he stands as the Sox best chance to pull out an easy win this weekend.

As for the Pale Hose, after their split with the Nationals earlier this week they still sit 2 games under .500, with their odds of getting past that not looking great.  With both Lopez and Nova on tap this weekend, they’re going to need to have better control than they’ve shown of late if they want to see the 5th inning, Nova in particular.  Giolito gets his sternest test to date against this lineup of mashers and it will be interesting to see how he responds.  O-driss gets his second start in a Sox jersey, and if he can replicate what he did against the Nats on Monday night, I’ll be shocked.

 

This could be ugly…

Baseball

Yankees Spotlight: The CC Sabathia Farewell Tour

By Andy Jonathan 1312 0

Just gonna get this out of the way right at the front.  I like CC Sabathia, always have.  When he came up with the Indians back in 2001, I loved the way he pitched.  He just didn’t give a shit.  Walked out to the mound with his jersey 12% tucked in, hat askew, and just threw smoke.  This was back when the Sox teams were nothing to sneeze at, too.  Frank Thomas, Jermaine Dye, Jim Thome.  It didn’t matter who was up there, he just toed the rubber and THREW.  Much like Johan Santana with the Twins back then, you couldn’t help be impressed.  Those opening years his ERA was always hovering right around 4ish, but you never seemed to notice because the Indians rosters back then were hilariously loaded.  Shit, Cliff Lee had a 5.53 ERA in 2004 and STILL won 14 games.  CC was different, however.  You could always just see that this dude was destined for something greater than the Mistake By The Lake.

As his career moved on, this became clear.  The last 3 years in Cleveland you could see the switch flip.  He became a pure workhorse, winning 48 games between 2006-08, and going the distance in 20(!!!) of them.  His ERA went down almost a full point by the time he was traded to the Brewers at the deadline in 2008, and he tried his damnedest to drag Milwaukee to the promised land (nope).  After that, it was time for him to get paid, and that’s exactly what happened.  The Evil Empire signed him to a 7 year deal worth $161 million, the largest ever given to a pitcher at the time.  He responded by winning 19 games that season with a 3.30 ERA and helped the Yank to their first World Series trophy in almost a decade.

Usually when a player, especially a pitcher, signs a wacky deal like the one CC signed, the odds of him finishing that contract with the same team are pretty damn low.  Not only did Sabathia finish that contract, but signed two extensions after it.  During the 2013-15 seasons, injuries began to plague the big man.  This really isn’t a surprise when you look at the innings he pitched up until this point.  He battled through them and came back healthy in 2017, in which he had something of a renaissance.  He started 26 games that year, racked up 14 wins and 150 innings.  The Yankees believed (rightly so) that proper management of his innings, combined with the introduction of a cutter to his repertoire after years of a mostly fastball/slider 1-2 punch would extend his shelf life. It worked, as the now 39 year old CC is one of only 7 other pitchers to ever win 100 games with two different teams.  He missed some time at the beginning of this season, mostly because doctors were putting a stent into his heart, but he still made it back in time to beat the Sox in April.

As his career winds down to a close, all you have to do is  look at his career statistics and you’ll see a six time all star, and a first ballot hall of famer.  He’s won 248 games and counting, struck out over 3,000 batters in 3450 innings, and won the AL Cy Young in 2007.  He won a world series in 2009, and been nothing but classy his entire career.  There’s really nothing else for him to do, except retire on his own terms, which I have the utmost respect for him doing.  Despite him playing exclusively for teams that I despise, I’ll truly miss seeing him pitch.  Just not when he was pitching against the Sox.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Lose Two Of Three In Colorado: The Rocky Mountain Way Can Kiss My Ass

By Sam Fels 1356 0

Game 1 Box Score: Rockies 6, Cubs 5

Game 2 Box Score: Rockies 10, Cubs 3

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 10, Rockies 1

Maybe I just forget every season, or I truly didn’t realize how torturous series in Denver are. Or maybe it was not wanting to lose the buzz from that homestand so quickly, and maybe losing just two of three doesn’t do that. I leave that to you. But good god, you’re never comfortable, sure something will go wrong, and the more you watch them you’re sure the Rockies are some gimmick team that are helpless outside their own environs. It feels cheap in a way.

Anyway, each team got a blowout and the Rockies got the coin-flip. While the massive bullpen meltdowns are no more damaging, though harder to watch, it’s the slow leaks that feel worse. Sure, Montgomery just hung one pitch that got hit to goddamn Telluride, and then Cishek was the victim of some fiendish BABIP Kung Fu Treachery with Murphy’s ball hitting the motherfucking bag. Maybe Rizzo doesn’t get there anyway, but I’m willing to bet he would have. Even McMahon’s game-winning hit was a product of Coors. You can say all that.

But that’s the problem. Even when the pen isn’t actively lighting itself on fire it still leaks a run here or there, and in close games that’s all it takes when the other team has a decent pen. Montgomery might not be as dependable as he was, and his 5.17 ERA and 1.7 WHIP suggest he’s not. Perhaps the yo-yoing of his role has finally taken its toll.

The Cubs still have a few weeks to survive until Craig Kimbrel arrives, and even then the pen won’t be sorted unless Carl Edwards Jr. finally finds the fountain of control, Cishek proves he’s not still dragging from last year, and either Maples finds that same fountain or they acquire someone or Brandon Morrow actually comes up for air. It’s the only thing holding this team back.

Anyway…

The Two Obs

-Schwarber now tickling a .900 OPS out of the leadoff spot. Everyone can kiss my ass and call it a love story.

-It’s funny how we feel differently about Yu Darvish‘s start than we do about Jon Lester‘s on Sunday, even though they were both four runs over six innings. Obviously, one held the opponent down to give his team a chance to come back while the other coughed up a lead. But that’s mitigated by this being Coors Field. Darvish didn’t walk anyone, which is a big step. Of late, Yu is losing his slider less, and his straight fastball more, which is probably a little easier to control. It’s getting there, and while he might be the highest-paid starter which makes his #5 status feel wrong, it’s still a hell of a fifth starter to have if that’s how things are right now.

–Cole Hamels got half-whiffs on any change-up the Rockies swung at today, which is probably the only way to get out of that dungeon alive. Your curve is going to be affected, but your change won’t. Hamels has been nails his last three starts, which makes it unfortunate he’s the only one the Cubs won’t get to use against the Gashouse Gorillas this weekend.

-Boy, Victor Caratini is putting to rest those overcooked fears from Spring Training that Willson would get too tired come the end of the year, huh? Caratini has also been a plus-framer so far this year, whereas Contreras has been just about even.

-Heyward is a good weekend from getting up over an .800 OPS again, which would be more than acceptable.

-Quintana has shied away from using his change the past two starts, both against the Rockies. Both starts saw him give up three runs but one was in over seven innings where he didn’t get out of the fifth last night. When he doesn’t use that change, he becomes a two-pitch pitcher which is a real problem when he can’t locate the fastball.

-Boy the Rockies get red-assed, huh? To be fair the whole thing was dumb. They weren’t trying to hit Kris Bryant twice in a game, and I don’t know how hitting Arenado makes Bryant un-hit or will prevent anyone from hitting Bryant again. We really think a pitcher on another team is even going to know about this, much less think, “I’m not going to throw inside to one of the best hitters in the game because they might plunk my guy?” Awfully complicated. Baez putting one 450 feet away is how you do it. Do it more often.

Onwards…

Everything Else

Stanley Cup Final Game 7 Preview – Cue The Europe

By Sam Fels 1606 0

vs.

GAMETIME: 7pm Central 

TV: NBC

PISSHEADS AND CHOWDAHEADS: St. Louis Gametime, Stanley Cup Of Chowder

If it feels like this goddamn Final has gone on for two months, you’re not alone. While the added day off for travel makes sense and should have been instituted a while ago, it does add four days to the series so you go from two weeks to two and a half, and it makes a difference. Hockey on June 12th is just dumb.

Or maybe it feels like it’s been this long because it’s two teams you’d rather not see win, and we spent all that time staring into the abyss that St. Louis could actually pull this off. Those two days felt like 70. And they still could, clearly, but a Game 7 on the road doesn’t much seem in character for them. Then again, being here at all doesn’t seem in character for them, so everything we knew and built our foundations upon is rubbish. Good way to live.

So it comes to this. Analyzing one hockey game can be futile, because anything can flip it. A bad call, a missed call, a delay of game penalty, a too many men penalty, someone falling on their ass, really anything.

Also, if Tuukka Rask plays as well as he did in Game 6, it isn’t going to matter much anyway. He is the reason the Bruins traipsed to the Final, and the layoff clearly took him down a level (down was the only way for him to go), but he may have found it again.

What Blues fans will be watching intently is if Jordan Binnington is going to revert to Blues traditional goaltending after letting in Brandon Carlo’s double-play ball through him and into the net. BABIP Kung Fu Treachery can come to hockey too, people. You would imagine the Blues aren’t going to get this with a middling goalie performance as the Bruins will make the Blues work at least on the power play, and Rask isn’t going to let the bottom fall out either. You know what we’re betting on.

Again, it’s a bit silly to pinpoint one player, because any fuckwit can come up with two goals and have his name live forever. Remember Max Talbot scoring twice in a Game 7? That dude was just a live action Pepe Le Peux. Still, most will focus on the Bruins top line. If they score, the Bruins tend to win. They hadn’t really until Game 6, with Marchand pulling a Jagr and only showing up when his team was on a two-man advantage and then Pastrnak got one in the third. The narrative has been that Bergeron has been getting pushed around in this series, but I don’t know that I buy it. He’s only been in the red in both attempts and expected goals in a game in Game 5 and Game 2, so he just hasn’t gotten the rub.

You would expect Bruce Cassidy to continue to keep Bergeron’s line and the Chara-McAvoy pairing separate, mostly to keep Chara away from Schwartz-Schenn-Tarasenko which he simply hasn’t had the mobility to deal with. That still leaves O’Reilly’s line as the assignment, and he’s obviously been going off of late. One feels if the Blues get this, it will be from that line. If anyone else dents on either side, then it’ll be their night.

It’s hard to see the Bruins losing three straight home games. The Blues have the bigger questions in goal and on special teams, which is not where you want to be in a Game 7. But again, it’s one game, where anything stupid or inexplicable is possible. But hey, at least it will be over come 11pm or 12am, right?