The Death Of God

Something else to ponder while you are wondering how any just and loving God could allow the Boston Red Sox to be the winningest team of the new millennium:

The guys at Fark.com had this take on college football: “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, and human sacrifice: Missouri and Kansas ranked in the AP top 10. MASS HYSTERIA.”

Something is SERIOUSLY wrong here.

Annoyed

One of these days I will feel like I have the financial wherewith all to purchase season television packages for MLS, the NHL, and MLB. Right now I enjoy XM radio broadcasts of Cards and Blues games...but it has limitations. I don't feel the limitations on baseball too much because the Cards make it onto national TV fairly often, and you can follow baseball pretty well on radio. You can always tell how the Cards are playing.

Hockey is a bit of a different story. Following the Blues on radio is okay, but you get a better feel for how they are playing if you can actually see the game. So, while I've listened to 4 of the 5 games the Blues have played I don't have a feel for how good they are. (Although I'm enjoying the 4-1 record very much.) I thought I would get my chance to evaluate the team this weekend as the Blues are playing Minnesota and I live in the Minneapolis TV market.....but no such luck. The game isn't televised locally. (WTF?)

It is enough to leave me with a headache.

Breaking Magpie News!!!!

From BBC:

Notts County boss Thompson sacked

And lucky me sharing a blog with one of the three people on the entire planet who has, I assume, an informed opinion on the subject. Ahhh, isn't the internet wonderful. Two State-side Midwestern boys separated by 1500 miles, yet somehow connected via a shitty League Two English soccer team.*

*Take this post as an indication of how excited I am about the Seinfeldesque Pineiro signing - he's probably as serviceable a fifth starter as you'll find......not that there is anything wrong with that.

IM here:

I think you can take this quote from the BBC story as an indication of how things were going for Thompson:

"We have taken the action we believe is necessary to rectify the situation," chairman John Armstrong-Holmes said.

"I want to thank Steve for assembling what I believe is the best squad of players we have had at County for six or seven season."

Translation: "With this squad how are you sitting in 19th place in the table? How are you getting waxed by the likes of Wycombe? You bloody great pillock."

For a team that, until a late season swoon, had thoughts about possible promotion last spring their form has been truly abysmal. If you don't want to admit you made a mistake in your signings, sacking the manager is the best option. My own expectations would have had them closer to 20 points after 11 games, instead of their present 11 points.

Oh well. It might get worse before it gets better.

Shhhh, David Beckham Is Still Alive

The lack of excitement/hype about Beckham as the Galaxy have made a playoff run has been interesting (a relief), but let's face it, as the Rockies this year and the Cardinals last year demonstrate, a shitty team on a roll can be unstoppable so The Galaxy have to be taken seriously if they slip in. With Beckham, all bets are off. It may be tempting to say that his addition would be a disruption to the win streak (see Briana Scurry v. Brazil) but the Galaxy/Bulls match in August showed how, at a fraction of top form, he could still control a game, notwithstanding the loss and Angel's stellar performance. Everything about that match flowed from his presence. If he can lift an underperforming squad of England's best to play better in the European Cup qualifiers then you have to believe that he would be the ultimate wildcard on a mediocre MLS squad facing off against the big boys in the post-season. The lull in hype has been a blessing, but I'm hoping the Galaxy make the dance and Beckham gets to play again.

I say that for three reasons:

1) I never got to see the 1967 Cardinals. Gibson took a liner off his ankle that shattered it and left him out for a couple of months. Early views were that the team would fold. Instead they ran away with the pennant. In an unfair mismatch Gibson dominated the Sox in the Series that cemented his position as a great clutch player.

If LA make it, they may have proven they don't NEED Beckham but you have to marvel at the advantage it could hand to them.

2) Some poor bastard is going to end up on the bench. To paraphrase what I believe was a story related by Halberstam in Summer of 49, a young Yankee (maybe Henrich or Keller) had stepped into DiMaggio's shoes while he was injured and tore it up, hitting .350 or so. The first day DiMaggio was available, he was back in the lineup and the replacement was on the bench with tears in his eyes. The manager (McCarthy?) walked up and put his arm around him and said, 'Son, you played great and your day is coming but that is the greatest player I have ever seen and if he is healthy, he's playing."

3) I think it would make for some damned exciting soccer.

A Pineiro In The Hand Is Worth???

Here is to hoping that Joel Pineiro is worth every penny: 2-year deal will keep Pineiro here

Last month Joel Pineiro couldn't wait to test the free agent market. By Monday morning he decided the market could survive without him for another two years.

Providing a degree of certainty for himself and the suddenly aggressive Cardinals, the pending free agent agreed to a two-year, $13 million contract that ensures a degree of depth for a starting rotation under renovation.

"I was going to test the market and see how it is," said Pineiro, who last winter accepted a one-year, $4 million contract with the Boston Red Sox that he thought offered an opportunity to start or close but actually did neither. "But there's no reason for it."

Pineiro, 29, was 6-4 with a 3.96 ERA in 11 starts after the Cardinals acquired him Red Sox in a July 31 non-waiver deadline deal. He struck out 40 against only 12 walks in 63 2/3 innings with the Redbirds. A throwaway to the Red Sox, he became a link to credibility for a rotation that never found its legs during a third-place season.

"St. Louis gave me that chance in July. They took a chance on me," Pineiro said. "That meant a lot to me personally. Everything else just clicked from there."

Pineiro receives a $500,000 signing bonus, $5 million in 2008 and $7.5 million in 2009.

Given that you can never tell how the free agent market is going to go, I don't have a problem with the Cards going with Pineiro. He pitched well down the stretch, even after most of the other Cards lost interest in the season. If he can eat up some innings he should certainly be able to fill the role that a Jeff Suppan did on this club.

Of course, other big questions remain, like are we going to get an outfield bat or not? The answer better be "yes" or the Cards will be looking up at Chicago and Milwaukee (and maybe even Cincy) for years to come.

Hardware

So....DC United has won the supporters shield for the best regular season record in MLS. For some, this is the only accomplishment that matters:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

As far as I’m concerned, we’re done. In a real league, we are the champions.

I'm as much of a Eurosnob as the next U.S. soccer fan, but it doesn't feel done to me. I like postseason tournaments (in all sports), so I don't see why MLS should be any different. (If we had a twenty team league I'd be clamoring for a single table louder than anyone...but I still wouldn't have a problem with a postseason.)

I view the "Supporter's Shield" the same way I view the "President's Trophy," it's a nice thing for the trophy case but if you lose in the postseason it don't mean much. I think back to the Blues in the 1999-2000 season and I don't remember much about the 114 point regular season. I still see the opening round loss to San Jose in my nightmares.

So, the regular season success has been nice, but it is time to get to work.

Time To Take A Deep Breath

"...relax and enjoy it." Bobby Knight, 1988

Since my comments bitch about Ron Zook yesterday, I've read Kevin McCarra's blog post in The Guardian on his overachieving Scots in the European Cup qualifiers and found a little perspective to apply to my view of the Illini season:

Who cares about explanations. Such things occur every so often and only an ingrate asks why. The abrupt return of hope is agonising now that Scotland have become quite good and are abruptly back on the verge of achievement. What else is there to do but join my melancholic countrymen in taking it for granted that the side must suffer a pratfall in Georgia tomorrow?

That's the Celtic soul in a nutshell and it reminded me of my favorite passages, a reflection on The Dying Gaul by Thomas Cahill in How the Irish Saved Civilization:

Fixity escaped these people, as in the end it escapes us all. They understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or people.

They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture: fighting, fucking, drinking, art –- poetry for intense emotion, the music that accompanied the heroic drinking with which each day ended, bewitching ornament for one’s person and possessions.

All these are worth pursuit, and the first, especially, will bring the honor great souls seek. But in the midst of this furious swirl of energy lies a still point of detachment.

...The face of the Dying Gaul speaks for them all: each one of us will die, naked and alone, on some battlefield not of our own choosing. My promise of undying faithfulness to you and yours to me, though made with all solemnity, is unlikely to survive the tricks that fate has in store – all the hidden land mines that beset human life.

So I am just going to live in the moment with the Illini and appreciate their season for the pleasant surprise it is.....Ah, fuck it. Who am I kidding? Saturday, I am going to be uptight, bitching about every other play call, throwing tantrums worthy of a four-year old over the officiating and pleading with pantheons of gods to deliver an improbable and undeserved victory. Come to think of it, for me, that is enjoying the Illini....

"Missed It By THAT Much"

I said I wouldn't get worked up if Mizzou lost at Oklahoma...after all it's Mizzou...at OKLAHOMA.

Still...the game was there for the taking. You've got a lead going into the fourth quarter, against a team you had been out gaining (at that point pretty badly), you sort of don't expect to fall behind 17 points. Ugh.

Of course it could have been worse. Like a road loss to a dismal conference foe who hadn't played well in years. Now, that would have sucked.

Kudos

Usually I take time in this blog to bitch about things I don't like, but the time has come to offer praise. Although I was completely skeptical going into the postseason, I have found TBS's coverage of the baseball playoffs excellent. The in-studio segments are interesting and the PBP guys have been more interested in calling the game then in acting like buffoons, as we seen on some other network telecasts. (I'm looking at you Buck and McCarver.) TBS will even forgo the occasional between inning commercial break to go back to the studio for some analysis on what we are seeing in the game. For those who love the intricacies of baseball, and I do, that makes for a highly enjoyable baseball watching experience.

It is especially refreshing after spending years watching Fox's baseball coverage, where the executives decided early on that what baseball telecasts really need is plenty of dancing robots.

Uncharted Territory

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. I sat down on Saturday night to watch my Tigers lose a heart-breaker on national television. BOOM! Mizzou scores TD's on its first two possessions and goes up 14-0. Then I see (as usual) the refs screw Mizzou twice, missing a TD catch and then claiming they couldn't see it on replay either, and I thought "Here comes the collapse." BOOM! We blow them out the rest of the way.

There are long standing patterns of behavior that I am finding it difficult to shed. I knew Mizzou had a chance to win (although I predicted a 1 point Husker victory), but I thought they would scrape by at best. But, this season at least, Nebraska is not in Mizzou's weight class. Count me happy but confused by my new surroundings.

So next week it is No. 11 ranked Mizzou versus No. 6 Oklahoma.

Man, does that sentence look weird to me.

Oskee Wow-Wow!

Talk about a 'Holy Shit!' Saturday afternoon. I cannot recall an Illini team in my lifetime that has dominated a ranked team on the ground. Most of my Illini life has been spent casting a greedy eye on the Michigan and Ohio State offensive and defensive lines, knowing that's probably the biggest reason why they are dominating year after year. From the P-D account of the game:

Illinois battered the Wisconsin defense for 289 rushing yards, led by Rashard Mendehall's 160, furthering the team's reputation as one of the top running teams in the country.....While the Illinois offensive line won its battle, the defensive front and the rest of the defense met a challenge Zook issued. Facing an offense that had become prolific in its running game, the Illini stuffed P.J. Hill, holding him to 83 yards on 21 carries, with 30 coming on one run.

I doubt if you have ever seen IM and Southlandish both so happy at this point in the same college football season. He was predicting a Mizzou swoon mid-season, but he was also predicting a tight Nebraska game, if I recall correctly. I'm already beyond my early season expectations, though I haven't yet checked Champaign's weekend police blotter to see how many assault charges have been filed against team members. Looks like I'll be posting the Chief until we lose. Ever the optimist, I've got five more days to enjoy this.

Happy To Be Wrong

I had forgotten just how good it feels to be in a big game, let alone pull out the win. I don't know who the dumbass was who denigrated this teams chances to play winning football:

Personally, I am going to declare the season a success if the Illini win three games, one of which is in the conference...

We can play three weeks of shitty football and STILL be at .500. All is not perfect, however. The Cubs are in the playoffs and I'm not silly enough to believe my Illini have a snowman's chance in hell of upsetting the Badgers this weekend, even at home. But I'm happy to be wrong.