Tonight We Are All Rays Fans

Tonight, let us root for the Rays.

Because yet another "improbable, miraculous" comeback by the Boston Red Sox would make the fans in that city even more insufferable, not to mention what they'd be saying on ESPN about them for the next, I don't know, forever years.

We don't ask for much around here on this blog. But we will ask for this - no more success for Boston sports teams, okay?

Go Rays!

Baseballocalypse

Maybe you're like me and don't really start to pay full attention to baseball until after July 4th.

Maybe you're like Brendan Fraser in that stupid movie and you've been locked in a bomb shelter for a very long time.

Maybe you have some complicated idea about objective vs. subjective truths that you learned about in grad school comparative lit class.

Whatever it may be, it cannot be denied that on this day, at this time, the team with the best record in the American League is the Tampa Bay Rays (they had an exorcism over the winter, and got the Devil out), and the team with the best record in the National League is the Chicago Cubs.

Tampa Bay and the Cubs.

First place.

Sheeeeeeet.

Next thing you'll tell me that a black guy might be president.

Opening Day

Due to an unplanned and overwhelmingly annoying and expensive visit from the electrician (homeownership!) I was able to watch many more opening day games than I would have had I gone to work on Monday.

I'll be honest - I'm not ready to start thinking about baseball in March, or even early April. The NCAA tournament isn't done yet. And it's about to be NBA playoffs time.

It also has something to do with the fact that I really have no favorite team in baseball. There are a variety of teams that I want to see do well (e.g. Cubs, Mets) and some players I really like watching (e.g. Vlad Guerrero, the middle of the White Sox order) but there's no "strap in, here we go on another amazing ride" type of feeling for me on opening day. Today for someone like me just marks another sports season starting - it's not as magical and full of the springtime hopefulness that others seem to feel today. I feel differently at the start of the NFL season. But that's me.

That all said, it was nice to have baseball games on the TV again. Baseball is a great thing to have on while doing other things. You don't have to pay attention all the time while a baseball game is on - you can just listen with half an ear, and wait for certain scenarios or certain batters to start intently watching.

It was also fun to see Kerry Wood continue to torture the Cubs. He gets named the closer, and came in to the 0-0 game today and promptly gave up 3 runs to the Brewers. There's something about seeing a man so karmicly impaired keep on trying anyway. Every season for the last decade, Cubs fans have been tantalized by his promise. And just about every one of those years, he failed to deliver.

The Cubs finally excised themselves of Mark Prior's bad luck. They need to do the same with Wood. He bears the stench of failure upon his body. His very name poisons the Wrigley Field atmosphere. They should trade him, or release him, and then set fire to his locker with all his used uniforms in it.

Nice to see the Japanese guy do well in game one, though. The crowd chanting "Fu-ku-do-me" before he hit the tying 3-run HR in the ninth was a cool moment. And the Cubs have a pretty nice-looking lineup for a NL team, and Zambrano was great, so they should be in the mix this year. It's always more fun for me, living on the north side of Chicago, when the Cubs are in the mix. As I've mentioned before, my fandom is selfish - I root for what's most fun for me.

Elsewhere, Martin cannot be reached because he is still in happy shock over Johan Santana looking like Johan Santana in his Mets debut. And Kris doesn't like seeing Joe Torre in a Dodgers uniform on the 50th anniversary of them leaving Brooklyn. Maybe Kris doesn't say that, but if he had indigestion today, or if he was more annoyed than he usually was, it's because deep down in his bones and guts he knows it ain't right to see Torre anywhere else, but especially not with a team that causes such psychic pain for many in New York.

And on this opening day, I do need to ask one question: did anyone else see the Suns-Nuggets game tonight? Now THAT was something.

Filowitz's Friday Five

1) I know it’s become cliché to say this at this point, but it really is hard to get overly excited about the Rockies-Diamondbacks series. The Rockies have been a fun story and everything, but there’s not that emotional aspect to the series that adds any additional drama. What this has become, in essence, is an NHL playoff series. There are certainly fans that care passionately, but for most of us, it’s just something you watch if you have the time and otherwise just check in on to see what happened. This would not have been true, of course, if either the Phillies or the Cubs had made it.

2) How could it be that in the best sports month of the year there were two consecutive days without baseball? Baseball is all about not having very many days off. Giving so many days off in the playoffs changes the dynamic of the game. We want to see games every day. So what if all the first round series ended early? I wish, just once, a sport would care more about the sport and less about TV dollars and luring in the casual fan who doesn’t really care.

3) I don’t wish to alarm anyone, but it looks like the Celtics are going to be really freakin’ good with KG. This is a major conflict for people like me who love watching KG play, and have hoped for so long that he’d finally get a supporting cast that will help him shine. If only this wasn’t going to happen in Boston. Right now, the Red Sox are the favorite to win the World Series, the Pats are the favorite to win the Super Bowl, and the Celtics are one of the favorites to at least make the Finals out of the East. And, hey, is that a couple of horsemen I see riding towards us? So now we know it is the duty of good people everywhere to root for the Indians, and probably the Cavs, if only to stave off apocalypse and a string of really annoying columns from Bill Simmons.

4) I saw an incredible Yo La Tengo concert last night. They were at this relatively small venue, The Lakeshore Theater, and it was a sit-down thing (which is great, as in my older age, I don’t have as good a time standing around for hours.) The band sat on stage, played songs, answered questions from the audience, joked around, and generally created this very intimate setting, like they came over to your house to play a show for you and your friends. This is my favorite band, and to see them in this setting was just about perfect, inspiring, even.

5) Happened to catch an “NFL Greatest Games” showing of the NFC championship game from 1992, Cowboys vs 49ers. Do you realize how many people from that game are now TV personalities? Troy Aikman, Moose Johnson, Jimmie Johnson, Emmit Smith, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, even Michael Irvin up until his recent firing. I hated both those teams, and now they are everywhere. Things are not looking up for me right now.

Quick Hitters

All it takes is September to remind me why I love baseball. It is certainly true that my team did mount a historic comeback and the team I most enjoy watching lose found a way to mount a historic collapse. But the essence of baseball and what makes it really different than the other sports is the pennant race and the ultimate tie breaker, the one game playoff. In the end baseball is king because the regular season means something and over a 162 game season you can run but you can't hide. The cream does rise to the top and mediocrity is left to play golf not allowed to serve as first round fodder to generate and extra round of playoff revenue. October is for the elite.

I can hear you muttering, the NFL is not the NBA or NHL, it only has 6 teams per conference make it to the second season. Certainly, you will have 10-6 NFL teams fail to make the playoffs, but for every one of them there are plenty of 8-8 teams that enter as wild cards. The NFL flaunts its parity with pride, the great Alan Selig has tried to emulate this with his prescriptions for "competitive balance", which on balance seem to have worked as you have not had a repeat world series champion this decade. But the greatness of baseball lies in the fact that only 4 teams per league are playing as of October 2.

Baseball's brilliance also lies in the fact that while the regular season is the best at selecting the worthy teams, it is a lousy predictor of who will ultimately reign as champion. Short series are predicated on dominant starting pitching, hot relievers and timely hitting. Baseball is the only sport where pure physicality is not dispositive. Often the "less talented" team will prevail based on key hits and an average pitcher with uncharacteristically good stuff. The only postseason that comes close is the NCAA tournament where a hot team can knock off the better team (see George Mason v. UConn). And while buzzer beaters are nice, nothing beats the walk off home run.

Objectively it is impossible to say that the best team truly wins every year and that is why postseason baseball is the best and most consistent of the playoffs in the major sports.

I cannot say that I have enjoyed a collapse more than the Mets the last few weeks. How stupid can you be to take a team that just wants to go back to South Beach and wake them up. The problem with the Mets all year has been a total lack of focus and leadership. Naturally you blame the manager. You would be wrong to do so. Willie has never gotten a fair shake from the Wilpons, being stuck with coaches he didn't choose and spies from the front office he cannot be held accountable. You have to look first at Omar Minaya.

One of the smart things the Yankees have done the past few years is bring in older players to help mentor the younger up and coming latin stars like Luis Sojo, Jose Vizcaino, Miguel Cairo, Chili Davis, Tim Raines, Ruben Sierra, all good clubhouse guys by the end of their tenure. The clubhouse is also ruled by Jorge Posada's hot temper and iron will. You think a Yankee would be allowed to get away with the antics the Mets displayed? You think Jeter or Posada would allow Cano to stand at home plate while the ball trickles down the base line in a must game? Would never happen.


Earlier in the season many Met fans proclaimed Reyes as the best shortstop in NY, he isn't even the best in his division. Jimmy Rollins, who should be the NL MVP, imposed his will on the stretch run the way Reyes did in the early season before the Mets became disinterested with the season. Rollins, knowing the Mets were down big, stole both second and third in the first inning, Reyes has failed to steal a base since September 15, in fact he had only 1 attempt since then.

A few other thoughts

Sherm Ave Fantasy Football - not to brag but I have rallied the troops after an abysmal 0-2 start to do what the Jets couldn't and square my record at 2-2. I suffered one of the all time worst defeats in the history of Fantasy Football where if you totaled my starters and bench points I still would have lost to my opponents starters. Look out

Boxing - it was great to be able to see a real live fight and not have to drop fifty bucks. Pavlik vs. Taylor was a refreshing trip to the fights of our youth where the two guys actually try to punch each other more than once a round.

Giants - great to see the new D coordinator Steve Spagnoulo exploiting the strengths of his unit by mixing blitz packages and making sure he had more guys rushing than could be blocked. ITs the only way to disguise the awful secondary play. Even Corey Webster can cover for 2-3 seconds. I'm still not sold on Eli, he makes too many dumb mistakes per game. I know his completion pct is up but he has thrown some of the most god awful intercepts I have ever seen and he still would rather try to float a pass off balance rather than step into a throw and take a hit or toss the ball out of bounds and live to fight another day. The offensive line is one fo the most underappreciated units in the game. The border war with the Jets Sunday will allow one team's season to continue and one will come to an end. Two enter, one leaves.

Rutgers - Its hard to believe that Rutgers was ranked as high as it has been based on its name. Yes, I will repeat that, Rutgers has garnered a high ranking based on its name and a Heisman candidate. Until Schiano finds a way to get his defense to use its speed to beat the bigger opponents it could be a long year. They are truly feeling the loss to graduation of an All Big East Nose Tackle and two linebackers who had been in the system for 4 years and understood the defense in and out. Never underestimate experience at the college level.

Don't forget to pick up your copy of Magic, hitting stores October 2. The new Springsteen Cd is an interesting compilation of pop hits, strong guitar driven rock and some 60s infused sound. There is an underlying political tone to the work but you have to real delve into the lyrics to find it, but it lurks within if you so desire. So far I am partial to Long Walk Home and Devil's Arcade. This album took me a few spins until I really appreciated the nuances and now i find myself singing the hooks.

The play in game just ended and I have a few thoughts:

With so much on the line, amazed at how boring the 8th thru 12th innings were

You had to know that the deadlock was ending when the Rockies brought in Jorge Julio, you know you are bad when you can't even pitch in the Mets bullpen.

How about Kaz Matsui in the playoffs, Jose Reyes at the salon frosting his hair.

Matt Holliday doesn't deserve the MVP just for sliding head first into home.

Seriously, who dresses Craig Sager, did he lose a bet as a child, I am happy I don't have TBS HD just so i dont have to see his ridiculous wardrobe in hi def.

Lastly, I don't care what SI says, Trevor Hoffman is not the greatest closer of all time and does not belong in the same sentence as Mariano Rivera.

On Baseball and America

As we celebrate the birth of our nation, America, our Independence, we pause to think about baseball.

Baseball, that sport so deep soaked in tradition, so part of our cultural fabric, so important a part of the coming of age of the vast majority of American males (and ever more so females as well.)

Baseball, which can stir in us passions and nostalgia that maybe we didn’t even know we had in us. Which can inspire and transfix and cast a spell that only works best when the days are long and hot and well suited for a game that moves in its own rhythm, out of our usual conceptions of time.

I recently went to a game at Wrigley Field, a game between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins that was of no particular importance. It had been a while, maybe a year, maybe two, since I had gone to see a game in person.

The thought that struck me instantly was that I had simply forgotten how much I love watching baseball. Love, a word I use not lightly. Memories of playing as a youth flooded back, the successes, the failures, the triumphs, the humiliations. Memories of other professional games I attended, too. Of learning to keep score, of taking in the atmosphere, of feeling oddly compelled to eat peanuts.

I’m reminded that in the book I’m currently reading, “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville” by Bernard Henri-Levy, he talks about visiting Cooperstown, to examine, as he describes it, “this sport that establishes people's identities, becomes part of their imaginative world — almost the American civic and patriotic religion, this baseball.”

As for the baseball Hall of Fame, and excuse the long excerpt, but I find it too perfect to paraphrase:

This is not a museum, it's a church. These are not rooms, they're chapels. The visitors themselves aren't really visitors but devotees, meditative and fervent. I hear one of them asking, in a low voice, if it's true that the greatest champions are buried here—beneath our feet, as if we were at Westminster Abbey, or in the Imperial Crypt beneath the Kapuziner Church in Vienna. And every effort is made to sanctify Cooperstown itself, this cradle of the national religion, this new Nazareth, this simple little town that nothing prepared for its election and yet which was present at the birth of the thing. An edifying history, told in the exhibition rooms and the brochures, of the scientific commission created at the beginning of the twentieth century by a former baseball player who became a millionaire and launched a nationwide contest on the theme "Send us your oldest baseball memory." He collected the testimony of an old engineer from Denver who in 1839, in Cooperstown, in front of the tailor's shop, saw Abner Doubleday, later a Northern general and a Civil War hero, the man who would fire the first shot against the Southerners, explain the game to passersby, set down the rules, and, in fact, baptize it.

The only problem, Tim Wiles, the museum's director of research, tells me, is that Abner Doubleday, in that famous year of 1839, wasn't in Cooperstown but at West Point; that the old engineer, who was supposed to have played that first game with him, had been just five years old; that the word "baseball" had already appeared in 1815, in a novel by Jane Austen, and in 1748, in a private letter found in England; that a baseball scholar, an eminent member of the Society for American Baseball Research, had just discovered, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an even older trace; that the Egyptians had, it seems, their own form of the game. The only problem, he says, is that we have always known — since 1939, in fact, since the museum's opening — that baseball is a sport of the people, and even if, like all sports of the people, it suffers from a lack of written archives, its origin is age-old. The only problem is that this history is a myth, and every year millions of men and women come, like me, to visit a town devoted entirely to its celebration.

So as we celebrate this week, as we eat and drink and make much merriment and ogle the fireworks, we can think a little about baseball and our country. How they are intertwined, both sharing a devotion to myths and to legends, and how each are perpetually fueled by cherished memories and a sometimes naïve optimism about what brought us where we are.

Happy Fourth!

Dia de los padres

Happy Father's Day to Marty.

Many of us live a great distance from our Fathers. For me, the distance makes today an especially poignant day of reflection. We often overlook that which was ingrained in us by our fathers.

While I won't see my father today, I will remember the Father's days past when I was a kid. Most of those were spent on a baseball field either at Votee Park or the High School field. We would have breakfast and drive to the game together, discuss the lineups, talk about the Yankees and usually the Rangers and Knicks (at that time they were real franchaises). Once we arrived at the field it was all business, we hung up our jerseys, took BP and he turned into Coach. He was a great coach, the best I ever played for and I think many of my friends agreed. He never took the team too seriously, allowing Augie and Yousaf to call him "wings", a joking nickname that took a shot at his flowing side burns. He was also secure enough to take advice from his co-coach Bob Fischer and from his players. Its often not easy when your dad is the coach but that was never the case for me. I enjoyed the opportunity to spend time together doing something we both loved.

We won a lot of games those summers but the the off-field times at Pizza Hut and other post game dinners stick out in my head. I was reminded of my father's impact when I saw George DeCruise at a wedding a few weeks ago. He came up to me, first told me I looked just like my father (sorry for you dad) then wanted to talk about the team and all the fun we had, ironically he left out the time he ran through the temporary fence in right field in Fair Lawn. Yeah, we may have gotten into a fracas or two with Fair Lawn and yeah somehow we lost a championship game to a Ridgewood team who we had beaten 3 times earlier in the season, Ed Note: oddly enough in the Championship game the team showed up ine mismatched uniforms and were shaving in the dugout. but what truly mattered was spending time together.

Dad, I want to thank you for all that words simply aren't enough to describe. Until I became a real, responsible adult I never fully appreciated the amount of sacrifice, work and energy you put into my childhood. Whether it was going into work at the crack of dawn to make sure you could leave on time to make a 4:30 soccer game or it was driving 90 min each way to a Rutgers game just for the 10 minutes of time we had to talk before the game started. I will always cherish those talks. Thank you for setting positive examples. Thank you for teaching me how to grind and work and that the most important part most times is just showing up. You taught me responsibility, and always instill in me the confidence that I can achieve my dreams.

I miss you and I love you.

Happy Father's Day.

Must Wins and Must Sees

Game 2 is a must game for Cleveland. The 232 format makes it impossible for teams down 0-2 to win. My disdain for the 232 is recorded in my previous post. As with any long series the most important adjustments are made between games 1 and 2. If I were holed up in a hotel suite in San Antonio with Mike Brown these would be my suggestions for getting back in the series:

• Run guard guard screen rolls on the wing with LeBron setting the screen for Gibson/Hughes/Pavlovic. Since the Spurs jump and double LeBron on ball screens this gives him the opportunity to force a mismatch and if they still double you have a ball handler with an open drive or a shooter on the strong side of the floor. It also gets the ball in LeBron’s hands going toward the basket.

• Play some zone defense to make the Spurs play outside in rather than running the offense through Duncan. The Spurs shooters are pretty streaky, I’d rather live and die by them than Duncan. You should also bring strong doubles to Duncan on the catch early in the game, if you can frustrate him early on he tends to fade for a while.

• Need more Boobie – Daniel Gibson needs to play more, he is the only guy they have who can attempt to control Tony Parker off the dribble, it would be a different story with a healthy Hughes. He also presents a legitimate shooter who you should be able to open up with the doubles on LeBron. The other guards need to feed off his fearlessness and find ways to assert themselves.

• Transition conversion percentage – There will not be many opportunities to run because San Antonio gets back and recovers better than just about any team I've ever seen but when you get a chance you can’t brick a layup, you have to convert.

A few quick thoughts:

Knocked Up – Funniest movie I’ve seen since Wedding Crashers, easily the funniest and maybe one of the 5 best of the year so far. It isn’t perfect, it drags and some of the characters are superfluous, but it is well worth the admission price. It was nice to see a movie that was genuinely funny without resorting primarily to bodily humor jokes. Plus Katherine Heigl is worth seeing.

Ocean’s 13 – Was disappointed by Ocean’s 13, it was clearly better than 12 but nowhere near as fun and stylish as 11. The tone was off and it the plot was confusing. Yeah its fun to see all the characters you are familiar with, Clooney and Pitt are charming, the other guys play their roles well but it was just missing something. I walked out thinking it was just an excuse for Clooney and Pitt to hang out and get paid. On a side note, it didn’t help that the guy behind me took off his shoes and put his feet up on top of the seat next to me then answered 3 phone calls with his ringer on loud and felt the need to comment back to the movie after every joke/comment/surprise.

Early Oscar Watch – Saw a preview for American Gangster with Denzel and Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott. It’s based on the true story of Frank Lucas from the 70s. It’s got gangsters, cops, Vietnam and two of the best actors of our generation. Set to arrive in theaters in November.

Yankees – Nice to see the Yankees found out the season started already. People will credit Clemens’ comeback and ARod’s walk off vs. Papelbon but the real story behind the comeback is the return to small ball. They have started to hit and run, bunt and actually score runners from third with less than two outs. Don’t overlook them in the second half if Pettitte can stay healthy.

Springsteen – Even if you are not a hardcore Springsteen fan, I defy you to pick up his new live cd and tell me you don’t enjoy it. It is composed of songs recorded in Dublin on his last tour with the Seeger Sessions Band. A 20 or so piece band he put together that plays folk music inspired by Pete Seeger. They also rework some of the Boss’ staples. I especially enjoy his rewrite of How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live. A song originally by Blind Alfred Reed that Springsteen reworked and first covered at the New Orleans Jazz Festival last year. It is undisputed that The Rising is the single best commentary on 9/11, and this song is as good a description of the wake of Katrina as I have heard.

Television – Though Summer is traditionally home to bad TV I must recommend the Fox reality show, On the Lot. It’s a filmmaker reality show that is refreshing in the amount of talent of the contestants. The show runs usually on Tuesdays and is like seeing a good Short Film Festival. I would also be remiss if I left out the new comedy central show Lil Bush which follows little George W. Bush and his friends (Condi, Dick and Rummy) through harrowing adventures. It debuts Wednesday at 10:30. If you have seen the previews you know that this is clearly must see TV.

Sopranos – For those who care, and I’m fairly certain at least half of my co-bloggers don’t, I predict Little Carmine will come back, eliminate Phil, retake his rightful place as the Boss of NY and broker a peace with Tony. The most important thing is that Silvio pulls through.

I’ll meet you further on up the road