17 Hours


Albert Pujols is the NL MVP

Teams win games — not players.

The reason why I wrote the above is because a poster on ESPN.com concluded that because the Phillies won more games than the Cardinals, Howard should be the NL MVP (that argument is weaker than Chris Webber’s knees).

However, let’s play that card.

The Cards were projected to lose 95 to 100 games this season. Thanks to Pujols’ presence, they didn’t lose nearly as many and were a .500 club.

Howard has struck out 692 times since 2004. Pretty grotesque numbers. He’s usually hitting a homerun or striking out, while Pujols is banging the ball over the ballpark.

In 2006 the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. Ryan Howard, a member of a Philadelphia Phillies team who didn’t make the playoffs that season, won the MVP.

Now in 2008, the Phillies won the World Series, the Cardinals missed the playoffs, and this is a little paradoxical, isn’t it?

At least there’s a good reason to be a Cardinals fan in 2008.



Cliff Lee — Your AL Cy Young Winner

In other news, Clay Aiken is gay.

Joe Morgan is livid.

And four people need to be banned from press boxes:

Demoted to the minors last year, Lee went a major league-best 22-3 this season with a 2.54 ERA. He received 24 of 28 first-place votes and 132 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced Thursday.

Please take the ballots away from writers until they promise, all of them, not to embarrass themselves with this contrarian bullshit every year. Hell, let the drunks in the bleachers vote.

Yesterday, Jay Mariotti wanted to know who left Tim Lincecum off the ballot entirely.

Woody Paige raised his hand, grinning like he was buttering the bread that got him the ESPN gig in the first place. I can’t imagine he has a vote. . . does he?

Whoever it was must have privileges revoked.

Bad refs get demoted all the time. Voters should be treated the same way.



Troy’s Musings (11/12/08)

Madonna apparently says of New York Yankees third-basemen Alex Rodriguez that he has “the heart of a poet trapped inside an insanely gorgeous body.”
People tell me that all the time, so I don’t see what the big deal is. I’m still baffled, as I assume all of you are, by this whole A-Rod/Madonna freak fest. My only guess is that Madonna is using Rodriguez for his skin.

New York Jets and New England Patriots go toe-to-toe tomorrow night.
Who cares? Well, many people care, but what I mean is why is there so much hype on this game? A rivalry is there, the two teams hate each other, and the AFC East lead is in tact. However, why can’t the Patriots/Jets-Favre hype die down?

Chauncey Billups’ effects on the Denver Nuggets
This should be in the headlines instead of what’s in the bold above. Though, that’s not happening. Billups has been his usual self in Denver in a couple of games so far, and the offense has been running more smooth than ever. Perhaps this is what Carmelo Anthony truly needed — true point guard who can also hit big shots when they matter.

Greg Oden returns tonight
Cool. Time to see if he can produce any more than he did in his first game. He had a few rebounds and a pair of blocks in his first game against the Lakers in which he only played thirteen minutes of, scoring no points. Hopefully he can put on a show against Dwyane Wade, Michael Beasley, Shawn Marion and the Heat tonight.

Tony Romo ready to play against Washington
In the sole word of Drew Rosenhaus, “NEXT!” I didn’t know it took so long to come back from a broken pinkie. In other news, has there ever been more news surround an injured player before? Not since 1990-1991 when the Boston Celtics’ Larry Bird’s career met its demise.



Books That Will Never Be Written
November 7, 2008, 8:16 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Here are books that will never be published in the history of civilization, or at least for as long as we — or these potential writers listed below — will live:

How I’ve Never Driven Drunk by Leonard Little
How to Keep Your Cool by Bob Knight
How I Converted the Chargers to Become an NFL Dynasty by Ryan Leaf
How to Follow the Rules by Kelvin Sampson
Staying Clean: My 20 Years in Baseball by Barry Bonds
We Hate the Yankees and Red Sox by ESPN
Being a Woman by Hillary Clinton
19-0: The Perfect Season by the Proud Members of the New England Patriots
How to Treat a Woman by O.J. Simpson
How to Become Charismatic by Bill Belichick
Drinking Water, Eating Vegetables and Absolving Alcohol by John Daly
How to Commit to One Woman for the rest of your Life by Wilt Chamberlain (Foreword by Michael Jordan)
How to lead an NFL team to a Super Bowl by Dan Marino
My Life as an NBA Champion by Reggie Miller
Becoming a Role Model: Leading a Invigorating Role for Kids by Charles Barkley
Balancing Your Professional and Private Life by Tony Romo (Foreword by Matt Leinart)
Mr. Halloween: How I became an October Legend by Alex Rodriguez
How to Stay Healthy by Kerry Wood
Quarterbacks I Love by Terrell Owens
The Dummy Guide: How to Build a Franchise by Matt Millen (foreword by Isaiah Thomas)



Sportswriting and why I want to do it

I want a job where I can be wrong almost all the time. A job where I can take pot shots at people who are actually doing what I can only dream about, and cut them down. I want to berate them, make jokes about them, and all else poke fun at them until I drive the general consensus of society nuts. I want to say one thing one day, and then when I am proven wrong, be able to sidestep my original opinion for a more popular one. I want to make bold predictions, and then disown them the moment they don’t happen. I want to hold someone up, put them on a pedestal and worship them. Then, I want to knock them down, spit on them and turn my back when they “fail” me. In short, I want to be a sports writer.

All I want is the chance to pontificate about how absolutely essential it is for a certain athlete to do something, and then when it happens, move the goal post back another 50 yards and start again. And, when I can’t find fault with an athlete’s performance, I will find fault with his/her so called character. For writers, this usually means picking apart their comments, TV ads or shoe color. Anything to bring him or her back down to earth. So, I can feel superior. And, if you offend someone, well, just get them to yell at you, and you’ll have column fodder for the rest of your career.

And I’m on my way to be doing just that. If you haven’t noticed yet, then believe me, I am an overly opinionated, sarcastic, dark/sexual humored, randomly pissed off person. Let me at these overpaid, overblown, overhyped jerks that I want to spend my life writing about on newspaper/magazine print.

When kids are playing basketball in the driveway they try to emulate Michael Jordan or Larry Bird. When I’m writing I try to emulate Hunter S. Thompson, Bob Ryan and Bill Simmons, then turn it up a notch to my own style.



Flawed Baseball

Asides from steroids, this is why baseball is flawed.

The nonexistence of the salary cap.

A salary cap needs to be put into baseball, so that smaller market teams aren’t stepped on year in and year out. Asides from the Tampa Bay Rays from this past season, what other small market team has blown away the league over the past ten seasons — the Florida Marlins, certainly, but the 2003 World Series was that, one and done (I said 10 years, so the 1997 World Series in which the Marlins won is void.)

C.C. Sabathia, after a year where he was traded from the Cleveland Indians to the Milwaukee Brewers during the trade deadline in August, has stood up to his contract year and is bound to receive some lucrative money, from either the New York Yankees, Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Angels, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Brewers, Angels, and Dodgers are offering Sabathia approximately $100 million.

While the New York Yankees, the franchise in the league that wields the highest payroll in baseball, is blowing the said bids out of the water by offering Sabathia over $137.5 million (the current record deal that was given to Johan Santana by the New York Mets last off-season) so he will play in the Bronx, wearing pinstripes.

Go ahead. Let the Yankees spend rapidly. Even though they haven’t won a World Series since 2000 and they missed the playoffs in 2008, the myriad amount of money that’s being thrown around is pretty nauseating. I love baseball as much as the next person loves the sport, but it’s ridiculous to have to put up with these inane headlines every year about some team trying to screw another.

Not to mention every ’screwing’ involves either the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, or [Boston] Red Sox.