Last week, Ryan posted an invite to join his friends fantasy league. I talked to the guy in charge, Brad, and decided that this was a league I wanted in on. The league is a keeper league, which is something I have always wanted to do, but unfortunately our leagues always have people who decide not to play one year or whatnot. This is also a Rotisserie style league, 5x5 basic scoring. Usually we do head-to-head, so this is a nice change of pace.
The way they do it, the four rookies in the league get to draft first, the others can keep up to three players from their last years roster. I wound up with the second pick, Ryan had the first. Unfortunately, these were the players already taken:
Joe Mauer
Prince Fielder
Mark Texeira
Miguel Cabrera
Ryan Howard
CC Sabathia
Adam Wainwright
Jon Lester
Josh Beckett
Ryan Braun
Carl Crawford
Matt Holliday
Albert Pujols
Matt Kemp
Tim Lincecum
Chase Utley
Roy Halladay
Alex Rodriguez
I had two strategies depending on what pick I had and who was available (obviously). If one of the big power hitting first basemen was available, I would take them. If Tim Lincecum was available, I would take him in the first round. Why Lincecum? Well, I figured if I took him, I would go the pitcher route and just use my first two picks to take top pitchers.
You see, the lineups favor hitters, 13 batters only 8 pitchers. Brad said that most guys take six starters and two closers. If I was going the pitching route, I was going to take 5 big gun starters and 3 big closers. Unfortunately, after seeing his name off the board, I realized I had one of two players to take: Hanley Ramirez or Evan Longoria. Ryan took H-Ram.
Here is my lineup, with the round I took them in:
C: Ryan Doumit (20)
1B: Adrian Gonzalez (2)
2B: Rickie Weeks (18)
3B: Evan Longoria (1)
SS: Elvis Andrus (11)
CI: Adam Dunn (7)
MI: Alcides Escobar (15)
OF: Adam Lind (4)
OF: Nick Markakis (6)
OF: Nelson Cruz (9)
OF: Jason Heyward (14)
OF: Chris Coghlan (17)
UTIL: Travis Hafner (16)
P: Dan Haren (3)
P: Matt Cain (5)
P: Heath Bell (8)
P: Brian Wilson (10)
P: John Lackey (12)
P: John Danks (13)
P: Phil Hughes (19)
P: Fausto Carmona (21)
I like my team, as long as guys stay healthy. There are also players I am looking at if certain guys start out slow. I had a few pitchers I liked with the final pick (well next to last pick of the draft), but Carmona interests me. Can he regain even 70% of the skill we saw when he won 19 games? Most of the other guys left were mainly projected as 11-12 game winners. Still, some of the guys left are guys I like, so if Carmona and Hughes start off badly, I can replace them.
I had to laugh because there are pay outs if you have the All Star MVP and Home Run Derby champion. Longoria was my pick to win AL MVP this season, maybe I will get lucky and he will win one or the other for me instead...
I will post results each week about both leagues. Maybe in the same post on Mondays, but who knows. I wouldn't mind input from everyone about this league, well except Ryan, who had a good draft as well.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Lost: Episode 610
After last week's episode, I was hoping that we would get more episodes giving us answers and a straight-forward story. Also, I was hoping there would be no more alternative time-line crap. Unfortunately I remembered the whole Jin being trapped in the cooler where Sayid found him. Jack's Camp
SmokeLocke leaves his camp to go visit Sun. He offers her the chance to join her and be reunited with Jin. She runs away from him and hits her head. Ben finds her and she somehow loses the ability to speak English. Seems like a case for House.
Richard returns to the group and say they need to leave. They must destroy the plane so that SmokeLocke cannot leave the island. Sun does not like what she hears and storms off. Later Jack joins her and says some encouraging words and gives her a piece of paper to write on. He says that he promises to reunite her with Jin and get them off the island...
SmokeLocke's Camp
There is some kind of saying about when the master is away, the mice will play (I might be mixing sayings here). My point is, Widmore's group attacks when SmokeLocke leaves. They use stun darts and take Jin to the other island.
They have the old DHARMA maps of electromagnetic pockets, it seems they were marked by Jin during his days as a DHARMA grunt. He will not help them until he speaks with Widmore. Charles gives him a camera of Sun's, which has pictures of their child.
Widmore wants Jin's help in stopping SmokeLocke from leaving the island. He says for them to bring in the package, which Jin asks what it is, and Widmore replies that the package is not a what, but a who.
SmokeLocke is upset that they took Jin, so he and Sayid take the boat over to the other island. Sawyer asks where they are going, and when SmokeLocke tells him, Sawyer asks why he doesn't just float across the water. SmokeLocke says that if he could do that, he would have left the island a long time ago. Sawyer makes one of the funniest comments of "yeah because that would be ridiculous." Cracked me up.
SmokeLocke walks up to the pylons and a group of guys with guns come to meet him. He says that he wants Jin back and Widmore says that he does not have him. SmokeLocke then says that "a wise man once said that war was coming to the island. I think it just got here."
Later, as they are bringing the person out of the submarine to see Jin, we see Sayid in the water. He gets a good look at the guy, and it turns out to be Desmond. At the camp, Sawyer asks where Jin and Sayid are. SmokeLocke asks if he remembers the room they were guarding on the sub, well he does not like secrets.
Flashsideways
I will keep this short. Basically, Jin and Sun are not married, yet they are having an affair. Jin is set free from customs, but without the money. Martin Keemy comes to the hotel room and does not like that they do not have the money.
Sun says that she has money and will pay him. Mikhail (remember old eye-patch?) speaks Korean and takes her to the bank. Keemy takes Jin to the restaurant. He ties him to the chair and then explains to him that he was delivering him the money because Sun's dad found out about the affair and paid Keemy to kill Jin. Obviously Jin cannot understand a word of it.
Turns out Sun's father closed her secret account (probably used that money to pay Keemy). When Mikhail and Sun return to the restaurant, everyone is dead. Jin then fights with Mikhail and kills him. During the struggle, Sun gets shot in the stomach. Jin picks her up and she says that she is pregnant.
Thoughts
-Ugh, I hate these alternative time-line stories. They make no sense. How could the island sinking cause them not to get married? How did Jin rise up to his position if he was not married to Sun? So stupid.
-Miles also had a funny line about Hurley only being able to track Richard if he was wrapped in bacon. Also, his mocking Sun's lack of English and Lapidus saying "says the guy who communes with dead people." This was at least a very funny episode.
-Did anyone else notice that Jack never used any kind of language that would indicate he was going to leave the island with them? He promised to get them on the plane and to see that they were off the island. Not we, not us, nothing like that. Seems interesting to me. I bet that time staring out at the beach has helped show him the way. He is looking more and more like Jacob's replacement.
-I would definitely have enjoyed more of Sun slowing stripping.
-I am happy that Desmond is back, but how the hell is he the package to stop SmokeLocke? I really thought it would be Walt, guess I was wrong. At least we get to hear him say Brotha one last time.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The City Of Brotherly Disdain
Originally written July 31, 2009
It is one of my deep regrets in life that I never saw Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Supposedly it was one of the worst places to see a baseball game, but I am a firm believer in the inability to understand joy if we don’t experience pain. That said, I have no idea how to appreciate new baseball wunderkinds without being familiar with their lesser predecessors.
And the Vet was, by all accounts, lesser. A soul-less cylindrical wasteland not unlike Shea, its most exciting characteristic was its on-site courtroom and jail cell for Philadelphia’s more animated fans. Those particular animated fans may be more the norm than the exception in my mind, but that is, I ought to admit, perhaps unfair.
I come into this story with an ax to grind. As a lifelong Mets, Giants and Devils fan, the city of Philadelphia is not my favorite. Throughout the late 1990s, the Devils and Flyers regularly battled for the Atlantic Division, and on two occasions, Eastern Conference Championship. As a Giants fan, my hatred of the Eagles is an unspoken certainty. As a Mets fan, the Phillies broke my heart with late season comebacks to take the National League East in both 2007 and 2008. Both years I had tickets to the first round of the playoffs to boot.
Of course, those two incidents happened after my first trip to the Phillies’ not so much warmer, gentler home of Citizens Bank Park on August 17, 2006. At that point, the city of Philadelphia had not won a title in my lifetime. And I was damn happy about that. As I was born in 1985 I had just missed titles by the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies and the 1983 Sixers. The Flyers’ last Cup was in 1975 and before that, the Eagles, perhaps my most hated of all sports teams, hadn’t snagged an NFL Championship since 1960, six years before the first Super Bowl. While the Phillies did finally end the city’s title drought in 2008 in a bizarre rain-interrupted Game Five, it was still of great satisfaction to me that the rest of the teams were unable to reach the top of the mountain.
The summer of 2006 was winding down and I was preparing for my senior year of college when Weg and I had a Sunday to kill and decided to spend it checking out the Phillies’ home park as they wrapped up a four-game set against the Mets. As it currently stands, I can’t exactly remember what the impetus for the trip was aside from wanting to watch the Amazins at the top of their game. That season was, to that point in my life, probably the best I had ever seen for the Metropolitans. Jose Reyes and David Wright were finally recognizing their potential, Carlos Beltran had bounced back from a mediocre first season with New York and Carlos Delgado was providing the powerful bat to the middle of the lineup the Mets had missed since Mike Piazza was in his prime.
This would be the season I truly familiarized myself with the crapshoot nature of baseball’s postseason. New York would finish the season with 97 wins, the most in baseball along with, well, New York, as the Yankees, too, would win 97. This prompted some publications, such as The Sporting News, to wonder in early October if another Subway Series was inevitable. And if the odds bore themselves out as they should have, it would be.
But that’s why they play the games.
The Yankees would surprisingly fall to the Tigers in the opening round of the playoffs, while the Mets would be eliminated in an excruciating seven-game NLCS against St. Louis. It was at that point that I realized the true sign of a team’s greatness is merely making the postseason. The playoffs themselves are too short and prone to random variation. Anything beyond a postseason berth is gravy.
Of course, the analytical side of my mind tells me that. In my heart I pine for the ultimate prize, which I’ve yet to see. But in my mind I know building a team to win the World Series is a fool’s errand. Too much can happen, too much can change and in my brain I know that when the Mets finally do win the World Series it will merely be a product of luck and chance.
But what glorious luck it will be.
Of course, that day in 2006, I was less convinced of luck affecting the Mets’ chances than I was their skill. The Mets were running away from their NL East competition to such a length that even with six weeks left in the season, the division title was a foregone conclusion. I thought about this as I drove down to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Weg was living for the summer along with some of his classmates from Rutgers University. After I picked him up we made sure to make a stop at the notorious grease trucks.
For those uninitiated, the grease trucks are a staple of undergraduate life for the Scarlet Knights. Each truck makes sandwiches that include a combination of just about any cellulite packing food you could want all thrown into the same bun with inspiring names like “Fat Darrell” or “Fat Bitch”. I first became familiar with the grease trucks when I was a junior in high school as I traveled to Rutgers with the Millburn High School Academic Quiz Bowl team for a tournament.
That’s right, I’m a nerd.
My personal favorite was a sandwich called the Fat Knight, a heart-clogging combination of cheesesteak, mozzarella sticks, chicken fingers, french fries and marinara sauce. As Weg and I made our purchases, we hit the road for Philadelphia, eating our multiple-thousand calorie sandwiches en route. New York and Philadelphia are not particularly far. A cheesesteak vendor in the East Village of Manhattan proudly calls itself “99 Miles to Philly” and it is approximately just that far. Philadelphia’s proximity makes it an ideal candidate for a day trip – the ride is rarely more than two hours – but some days the traffic can get heavy.
This was one of those days.
Indeed a number of construction delays sidetracked us and we hastily made up a new route using a map and some side roads, which, somehow, actually got us to park well in advance of game time.
Citizens Bank Park comes up in the horizon much like any other in the wave of faux-retro stadiums, with its old-timey steel banks of stadium lights high above it. The drive into the stadium parking lots is uninspiring. It rests in a complex of all the city’s major sports teams, and indeed, Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Eagles, and the Flyers and Sixers’ home, the Wachovia Center, are all within close walking distance. This is extremely convenient, but it also makes the area look like three gigantic stadiums surrounded by dozens of vacant lots.
That’s because it is. The lots are there not because Philadelphia can’t find businesses to fill the ground, but because the parked cars have to go somewhere. While the placement of the stadiums is not as aesthetically pleasing as most new stadiums that are intended to revitalize depressed downtowns, such as Coors Field in Denver, it does make getting in and leaving a whole lot easier if you’re driving – perhaps the only benefit of the rash of suburban arenas that popped up in the 1960s and 70s.
Weg and I parked my beige 1994 Camry Wagon in a dirt lot not far from the Park and began our walk. From afar, the stadium looks very nice, with its red-brick walls, and its intimate environs, supposedly far different from the spacious Vet. But it also includes those delightful Philly fans. This would be my first time walking into Philadelphia wearing the other team’s colors.
The baptism came quickly.
As Weg and I approached decked in our blue and orange, a group of Philly fans was tailgating in the parking lot, and they immediately began hollering. Perhaps they had a right to. Despite their superb play for most of the season, the Mets were currently in the midst of a four-game series in the City of Brotherly Love in which they had lost the first three. The Mets still led the season series 9-6 at the time, but the Fightins felt emboldened.
One of them cried out to us, “Did you guys bring your brooms? For the sweep?!”
We paused for a second, slightly dumbfounded at some unexpected ribbing and dramatically dumbfounded at arrogance that can come despite being nowhere near the top of the standings.
“No,” I replied. “… But we brought our 12 ½-game lead in first place.”
Silence.
As so often is the case when we feel cornered, the fan relied on the only trump card he had left.
“Ah….. well, fuck you!”
Thoroughly bested, Weg and I proceeded to the stadium where we noticed long lines for walkups at the stadium box office. Apparently summer Sundays and beautiful weather are recipes for crowds, and at 45,775 this would be the largest in the three-year history of Citizens Bank Park. Weg and I, however, had no use for lines, and rather than wait through the first three innings with the plebeians, we quickly scoured for scalpers and found one who appeared to have no idea what he was doing.
He was more boy than man, with an unshaven lightly-grown in pre-pubescent mustache, a backwards Phillies hat and a constant look of “Huh?” on his face. One would surmise this was not your typical vendor. In fact, when he offered us $45 face-value tickets at merely $25 a pop, it became apparent he wasn’t a vendor at all – just a random kid trying to unload two extra tickets. Unfortunately for us, an actual scalper sensed the chance to make a huge score, re-selling the tickets at face value to make a sizeable return on his investment.
“SIXTY!” he jumped in with.
Fortunately for Weg and I, the kid clearly wasn’t comfortable dealing with the scalper, and when we informed him that we, too, would pay $60 for the pair, he gave us the tickets prompting outrage from the scalper. Weg and I sensed it wise to get into the park as quickly as possible.
We entered the stadium and passed by the Phillie Phun Zone, a children’s play area with a delightful plastic sculpture of the Phillie Phanatic – just about the only thing I like about this franchise – riding a roller coaster car. While walking to our seats, it quickly became apparent that we were not sitting in a typical section. We had somehow landed ducats to the Hall of Fame Club, the first snazzy club I had ever seen in a baseball stadium. Upscale bars, red baseball-themed carpeting, Phillies memorabilia and air conditioning stretched as far as the eye could see.
To boot, for a city so reputed for its crass fans, it was a shockingly environmentally conscious building – the beer cups were made of processed corn. A year after our trip, PETA would name it the most vegetarian-friendly park in the majors.
We walked out of the club to our seats, which were cushioned and in a private elevated section behind first base, and settled in to watch the game. Say, what you will about its inhabitants – and I do – Citizens Bank Park is a beautiful place to watch baseball. The park does indeed feel intimate and its ubiquitous brick facades everywhere give it a character and warmth that was unlike Miller Park, the other newer stadium I had been to at the time. It had plenty of what many new buildings do so well in that it had quirks and characteristics that reminded you that this was where the Phillies called home.
Along centerfield was Ashburn Alley, a collection of restaurants, shops and Phillies memorabilia named for Richie Ashburn, considered by many the greatest to ever play in Philadelphia’s pinstripes. The park also features a Phillies Wall of Fame and exhibits commemorating Philadelphia’s baseball history. As if those weren’t strong enough indicators, there were two remaining items that are uniquely Philly. For one there is a giant electric Liberty Bell that rings after each Phillie home run, and for another, and perhaps most endemic of its hometown fans, is the open-air stacked bullpens in right field.
Rather than having bullpens side by side, the Phillies built them one on top of the other, with the upper bullpen set back from the lower bullpen. The argument is that this enables both teams’ relievers a better view of the action on the field, but ulterior motives lurk. The upper bullpen happens to be right beneath a standing room passageway where fans either watch the game or walk by to get around the stadium. The location leaves visiting relievers in perfect position to be heckled, a practice which is allowed so long as they keep it clean.
That a stadium would be built with a fan’s ability to heckle visiting players in mind is stunning in my mind. Those fans might want to watch themselves if they aren’t paying attention to the field, however, as they might be hit by a home run ball that flies out of the stadium.
And fly they do.
In its infancy, Citizens Bank Park has gained a warranted reputation as a notorious hitter’s park. The stadium has been among the National League leaders in home runs each of its first six seasons, often leading the pack. The balls jet out of the building so often that the left field wall was actually moved back five feet after its first season. So prone to the long ball is the stadium, that two days before Weg and I showed up, Mets leadoff hitter Jose Reyes, a man far more reputed for his stolen bases than his power stroke, hit three home runs in one game.
It did little good as the Mets would lose that game 11-4, and while Reyes didn’t bring his power stroke along when I was in the stands, he didn’t have to worry about carrying the load. Carlos Delgado did. Delgado clocked two homers that day, as the Mets scored in the first three innings to jump out to a four-run lead. With John Maine delivering six solid innings, New York would breeze to a 7-2 win, snapping its three-game skid and starting a seven-game winning streak. Beginning that day the Mets would win 13 of their next 15 games, effectively ending the race for the NL East pennant that year. While Philadelphia’s slugging first baseman Ryan Howard would hit his 42nd home run of the year that day, tying Boston’s David Ortiz for the Major League lead, there was little else good on the day for the Philly fans, who were unable to drown out a “Let’s Go Mets!” chant from the traveling New York crowd that had driven down for the Sunday matinee.
With a nice win in our back pockets, Weg and I left the park with smug looks on our faces. The only problem with the day was the eons-long wait to get out of the parking lot and back on the New Jersey Turnpike. While we had our hearts broken in October, August of 2006 was a good time to be a Mets fan. Yes, a year later the Phillies would cap a remarkable comeback in the standings to rob the Mets of consecutive division titles, forever putting fuel in the rivalry’s fire. But some days you’re able to waltz into enemy territory, take their barbs and leave with a smile on your face after taking over their building.
My first visit to Citizens Bank Park was one of those days. Were I clairvoyant enough to see what would happen the next three seasons, well, I probably wouldn’t have been so arrogant when I left the stadium. But I claim no guilt in that. Being surrounded by Philadelphia sports fans will always bring the worst out of me.
And the Vet was, by all accounts, lesser. A soul-less cylindrical wasteland not unlike Shea, its most exciting characteristic was its on-site courtroom and jail cell for Philadelphia’s more animated fans. Those particular animated fans may be more the norm than the exception in my mind, but that is, I ought to admit, perhaps unfair.
I come into this story with an ax to grind. As a lifelong Mets, Giants and Devils fan, the city of Philadelphia is not my favorite. Throughout the late 1990s, the Devils and Flyers regularly battled for the Atlantic Division, and on two occasions, Eastern Conference Championship. As a Giants fan, my hatred of the Eagles is an unspoken certainty. As a Mets fan, the Phillies broke my heart with late season comebacks to take the National League East in both 2007 and 2008. Both years I had tickets to the first round of the playoffs to boot.
Of course, those two incidents happened after my first trip to the Phillies’ not so much warmer, gentler home of Citizens Bank Park on August 17, 2006. At that point, the city of Philadelphia had not won a title in my lifetime. And I was damn happy about that. As I was born in 1985 I had just missed titles by the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies and the 1983 Sixers. The Flyers’ last Cup was in 1975 and before that, the Eagles, perhaps my most hated of all sports teams, hadn’t snagged an NFL Championship since 1960, six years before the first Super Bowl. While the Phillies did finally end the city’s title drought in 2008 in a bizarre rain-interrupted Game Five, it was still of great satisfaction to me that the rest of the teams were unable to reach the top of the mountain.
The summer of 2006 was winding down and I was preparing for my senior year of college when Weg and I had a Sunday to kill and decided to spend it checking out the Phillies’ home park as they wrapped up a four-game set against the Mets. As it currently stands, I can’t exactly remember what the impetus for the trip was aside from wanting to watch the Amazins at the top of their game. That season was, to that point in my life, probably the best I had ever seen for the Metropolitans. Jose Reyes and David Wright were finally recognizing their potential, Carlos Beltran had bounced back from a mediocre first season with New York and Carlos Delgado was providing the powerful bat to the middle of the lineup the Mets had missed since Mike Piazza was in his prime.
But that’s why they play the games.
The Yankees would surprisingly fall to the Tigers in the opening round of the playoffs, while the Mets would be eliminated in an excruciating seven-game NLCS against St. Louis. It was at that point that I realized the true sign of a team’s greatness is merely making the postseason. The playoffs themselves are too short and prone to random variation. Anything beyond a postseason berth is gravy.
Of course, the analytical side of my mind tells me that. In my heart I pine for the ultimate prize, which I’ve yet to see. But in my mind I know building a team to win the World Series is a fool’s errand. Too much can happen, too much can change and in my brain I know that when the Mets finally do win the World Series it will merely be a product of luck and chance.
But what glorious luck it will be.
For those uninitiated, the grease trucks are a staple of undergraduate life for the Scarlet Knights. Each truck makes sandwiches that include a combination of just about any cellulite packing food you could want all thrown into the same bun with inspiring names like “Fat Darrell” or “Fat Bitch”. I first became familiar with the grease trucks when I was a junior in high school as I traveled to Rutgers with the Millburn High School Academic Quiz Bowl team for a tournament.
That’s right, I’m a nerd.
This was one of those days.
Indeed a number of construction delays sidetracked us and we hastily made up a new route using a map and some side roads, which, somehow, actually got us to park well in advance of game time.
That’s because it is. The lots are there not because Philadelphia can’t find businesses to fill the ground, but because the parked cars have to go somewhere. While the placement of the stadiums is not as aesthetically pleasing as most new stadiums that are intended to revitalize depressed downtowns, such as Coors Field in Denver, it does make getting in and leaving a whole lot easier if you’re driving – perhaps the only benefit of the rash of suburban arenas that popped up in the 1960s and 70s.
Weg and I parked my beige 1994 Camry Wagon in a dirt lot not far from the Park and began our walk. From afar, the stadium looks very nice, with its red-brick walls, and its intimate environs, supposedly far different from the spacious Vet. But it also includes those delightful Philly fans. This would be my first time walking into Philadelphia wearing the other team’s colors.
As Weg and I approached decked in our blue and orange, a group of Philly fans was tailgating in the parking lot, and they immediately began hollering. Perhaps they had a right to. Despite their superb play for most of the season, the Mets were currently in the midst of a four-game series in the City of Brotherly Love in which they had lost the first three. The Mets still led the season series 9-6 at the time, but the Fightins felt emboldened.
One of them cried out to us, “Did you guys bring your brooms? For the sweep?!”
We paused for a second, slightly dumbfounded at some unexpected ribbing and dramatically dumbfounded at arrogance that can come despite being nowhere near the top of the standings.
“No,” I replied. “… But we brought our 12 ½-game lead in first place.”
Silence.
As so often is the case when we feel cornered, the fan relied on the only trump card he had left.
“Ah….. well, fuck you!”
He was more boy than man, with an unshaven lightly-grown in pre-pubescent mustache, a backwards Phillies hat and a constant look of “Huh?” on his face. One would surmise this was not your typical vendor. In fact, when he offered us $45 face-value tickets at merely $25 a pop, it became apparent he wasn’t a vendor at all – just a random kid trying to unload two extra tickets. Unfortunately for us, an actual scalper sensed the chance to make a huge score, re-selling the tickets at face value to make a sizeable return on his investment.
“SIXTY!” he jumped in with.
Fortunately for Weg and I, the kid clearly wasn’t comfortable dealing with the scalper, and when we informed him that we, too, would pay $60 for the pair, he gave us the tickets prompting outrage from the scalper. Weg and I sensed it wise to get into the park as quickly as possible.
To boot, for a city so reputed for its crass fans, it was a shockingly environmentally conscious building – the beer cups were made of processed corn. A year after our trip, PETA would name it the most vegetarian-friendly park in the majors.
We walked out of the club to our seats, which were cushioned and in a private elevated section behind first base, and settled in to watch the game. Say, what you will about its inhabitants – and I do – Citizens Bank Park is a beautiful place to watch baseball. The park does indeed feel intimate and its ubiquitous brick facades everywhere give it a character and warmth that was unlike Miller Park, the other newer stadium I had been to at the time. It had plenty of what many new buildings do so well in that it had quirks and characteristics that reminded you that this was where the Phillies called home.
Along centerfield was Ashburn Alley, a collection of restaurants, shops and Phillies memorabilia named for Richie Ashburn, considered by many the greatest to ever play in Philadelphia’s pinstripes. The park also features a Phillies Wall of Fame and exhibits commemorating Philadelphia’s baseball history. As if those weren’t strong enough indicators, there were two remaining items that are uniquely Philly. For one there is a giant electric Liberty Bell that rings after each Phillie home run, and for another, and perhaps most endemic of its hometown fans, is the open-air stacked bullpens in right field.
That a stadium would be built with a fan’s ability to heckle visiting players in mind is stunning in my mind. Those fans might want to watch themselves if they aren’t paying attention to the field, however, as they might be hit by a home run ball that flies out of the stadium.
And fly they do.
In its infancy, Citizens Bank Park has gained a warranted reputation as a notorious hitter’s park. The stadium has been among the National League leaders in home runs each of its first six seasons, often leading the pack. The balls jet out of the building so often that the left field wall was actually moved back five feet after its first season. So prone to the long ball is the stadium, that two days before Weg and I showed up, Mets leadoff hitter Jose Reyes, a man far more reputed for his stolen bases than his power stroke, hit three home runs in one game.
With a nice win in our back pockets, Weg and I left the park with smug looks on our faces. The only problem with the day was the eons-long wait to get out of the parking lot and back on the New Jersey Turnpike. While we had our hearts broken in October, August of 2006 was a good time to be a Mets fan. Yes, a year later the Phillies would cap a remarkable comeback in the standings to rob the Mets of consecutive division titles, forever putting fuel in the rivalry’s fire. But some days you’re able to waltz into enemy territory, take their barbs and leave with a smile on your face after taking over their building.
My first visit to Citizens Bank Park was one of those days. Were I clairvoyant enough to see what would happen the next three seasons, well, I probably wouldn’t have been so arrogant when I left the stadium. But I claim no guilt in that. Being surrounded by Philadelphia sports fans will always bring the worst out of me.
Monday, March 29, 2010
24: 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.
Way to go 24, nothing like bringing back the CTU mole and the government dissension plot in the same season. A general decides to send in an elite team to capture Hassan and turn him over to the terrorists. Obviously the president foresaw this and sends Jack Bauer to escort Hassan. The worst part about the episode though, why did the service tunnel underneath the UN look like some hoarders garage. There were pallets of wood chips (it looked like wood chip bags to me, since my mom always gets a pallet of wood chips) and random barrels everywhere. Why the hell would this stuff be underneath the UN and why would it be so cluttered?
It was awesome watching Jack take down an elite team all by himself. I guess that one chick helped and President Hassan did take out someone, but really Jack did all the work himself. I bet he regrets not throwing some grenades into his purse.
Jack now has one of the soldiers under his custody, maybe there will be a civil war because of this general's actions. I really hope Jack tortures the shit out of Dana for making us sit through that entire Kevin story.
Shaving
So I was in the shower a little bit ago and I had a thought. I wondered how long it would take my leg hair to grow back if I shaved it. For those of you who do not know, I have very hairy legs. I look like a Wookiee.
My guess is three weeks and it would be completely back to normal. Any takers? I am putting a poll up on the right. Vote yes or no as to whether I should do this. If you go with yes, let me know what your prediction is.
Do not fear, I will be scientific about this, I would start out measuring a bunch of hairs to get an average. Then continue to measure it until it gets back to that length. I will keep photographic proof for the sake of history.
This is what happens when you have a generic day off and try to stay awake all day long. Oh well, I will stand behind whatever decision you folks make.
My guess is three weeks and it would be completely back to normal. Any takers? I am putting a poll up on the right. Vote yes or no as to whether I should do this. If you go with yes, let me know what your prediction is.
Do not fear, I will be scientific about this, I would start out measuring a bunch of hairs to get an average. Then continue to measure it until it gets back to that length. I will keep photographic proof for the sake of history.
This is what happens when you have a generic day off and try to stay awake all day long. Oh well, I will stand behind whatever decision you folks make.
Weekend Sports Roundup
Yeah, I don't have a story prepared for you.
I know. I know. You're not sure how you're going to procrastinate at work today, but I'm going to ramble a little and perhaps you'll be able to find some solace that way. Maybe. I have a hunch that won't be the case right away since, for me, the most exciting sports moment of the weekend came when I checked my twitter feed at the Brooklyn Brunch Experiment and found that Southampton FC had won the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.
Some of you might recall from my earlier posts that I follow a soccer team in England called Southampton FC, known as the Saints, the result of a sparsely maintained friendship I formed with a Brit named Scott Pestell eight years ago while working as a summer camp counselor. Since I started following the Saints, after an early brush with Premier League prominence -- the club rose as high as fifth in the table of England's top flight -- it has been a rough period for the team. Southampton has been relegated twice in the past eight years, the results of financial constraints, injuries and being put into administration. The Saints did nearly pull back into the Premier League before losing a play-off match to Derby County on PKs a few years ago, but since then it's been nothing but bad news.
Well, the red and white stripes got some good news on Sunday.
No, the Johnstone's Paint Trophy isn't exactly the U.K. equivalent of winning the Super Bowl. In fact, the Wikipedia page for the tournament says it, "is not considered a priority by many clubs, with some opting to field below-strength teams, particularly in the earlier rounds". But it's still the first piece of hardware for the club in 34 years since its triumph over Manchester United (Surely, you've heard of them at least) in the 1976 F.A. Cup Final.
Ok. The section on sports you don't care about is over now. Just be happy I didn't dedicate several paragraphs to Gary Ablett's public declaration that people need to stop bugging him about a potential move to Gold Coast for the AFL's 2011 season.
Now, if you want to hear about something you've heard of before, this NCAA Basketball Tournament thing is starting to wind down to its final stages. Baylor missed out on a golden opportunity to make this the most peculiar and interesting Final Four I've ever seen when it blew a late lead to Duke last night, and with the Final Four now sitting at Butler, Michigan State, West Virginia and Duke -- raise your hand if you had that one -- well, it looks to me like the Blue Devils have pretty much an open path to a championship after they were gifted the weakest region in the bracket.
Of course, if the other established program still alive, Michigan State, should take the title, it will be slightly more palatable because they wear my favorite color and they're not quite as nationally reviled, but as an alum of another Big Ten school I have difficulty cheering for Sparty. I will say, however, that this may have solidified Tom Izzo's reputation as the best basketball coach of his generation -- at all levels. Yes, Phil Jackson is really, really good, but the best player to come through Michigan State in Izzo's tenure that I can think of is Mateen Cleaves, who, unlike Jackson's charges of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant or Scottie Pippen, hasn't exactly made the right kinds of headlines lately. And yet, Izzo, who has a National Championship to his credit, is in his second consecutive Final Four and sixth in the last 12 years. Oh yeah, and he's doing it without his best player.
Mighty impressive indeed.
I've never been to the city, and it always bugs me when some jackass wears a Charlestown Chiefs jersey at NHL games (without fail there is always at least one), but something about this just seems sad to me.
Perhaps I'll mourn the loss by popping it in the DVD player.
Facebook. . . Good, Bad, Ugly? . . .
I stumbled into a conversation yesterday in the hallway at our church. It was occasioned by a remark our sixty-something pastor made during his sermon about "looking around on Facebook the other day." Yep, he's got an account. . . which I'm sure suprises many who know him and bothers some. Personally, I think it's great.
The conversation had to do with some discussions that are rumored to be taking place regarding whether or not our church should have its own Facebook page. I'm all for it. Others, however, are concerned that there are too many negative implications and dangers. Knowing our congregation as I do, I'm sure there are some who think that putting up a page equals caving in to the spirit of the times. . . . maybe even the start of a dance with the Devil. If you're scratching your head over this, you don't know my church. It's a congregation I love. Much of what I love is the thoughtful and sometimes very, very slow and deliberate manner in which we think about change. At times, it's a pain in the rear-end. At other times, it forces us to pause and ask the very important questions we might not otherwise ask in the very helpful process of iron rubbing against and sharpening iron.
While I have no idea where our church will land on this one, I'm thrilled that there's conversation and discussion taking place. I've found it helpful to have those conversations with myself regarding social networking technologies and the way I - or "we" here at CPYU - choose to use them. I'm having the self-conversation now about setting up a personal Twitter account, and if and when I do, what to embrace, and what to avoid. I have these conversations with the parents I meet in my travels all the time. Many of them want me to answer with a resounding "NO!" when they ask me if they should allow their kids to have a Facebook presence. Life in today's world is complex. Technological advancements and our age-induced ignorance combines with fear of the unknown to leave us wishing sometimes that it would all go away and life would go back to the simpler way it was.
To all of you who wonder about these things along with me, here are some thoughts that I've found to be constructive and helpful.
First, Facebook and Twitter are not the problem. The problem lies with the people that use them and how they choose to use them. Theologian Albert Wolters offers us a helpful and accurate paradigm when he talks about "structure" and "direction" in his great little book, Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview. Structure refers to the constitutional nature of the thing. In this case, the thing could be Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or any other digital/social networking platform. In effect, the structure is nuetral. It isn't good or bad. What happens is that people whose lives have been marred by sin choose to employ the structures. The direction has to do with the order of sin and redemption. At times, we use the structures in a direction that brings honor and glory to God when they conform to God's design and promote things that are good, true, right, and honorable. At other times - all too often because of who we are - we use the structures to glorify the world, the flesh, and the Devil by employing them in ways that distort God's design for His world. A big part of the battle is simply paying attention to our tendency to move in this latter direction because of the sin in our lives, and the consequent need to pay attention to how we use . . . well . . . anything and everything in this world.
Second, it pays to know yourself. To be honest, there are people who should stay away from this stuff because it only feeds the beast within. For example, the narcissist finds this stuff especially enticing and even helpful, as now I can further promote myself while believing that there's a growing army out there who really does care about every little detail of my life and what I'm doing with every little minute of my day. That reality makes a good case for a parent saying "yes" to this stuff, as long as there's a good dose of instruction, oversight, and accountability that teaches kids how to balance the use of the structure in the right direction. In other words, you're training them to employ something that's part of their world in a direction that brings honor and glory to God, rather than to self.
Third, be careful about playing the community card. I'm still digesting Jesse Rice's thought-provoking little book, The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community. While reading, I was reminded again that Facebook and other social networking tools allow us to carefully. . . very carefully and deliberately. . . manufacture the online self we want the world to see. Usually, it's a version of self that fails to show who I really am, while showing who I hope and want others to think I am. It's inauthentic. . . and our "entourage" usually doesn't even realize it. It's easy for insecure adolescents to get caught up in the frenzy. I wonder how it will effect their ability to be authentic and relate for the rest of their lives. Even adults with adolescent tendencies and insecurities are uniquely susceptible to falling into the trap. Add to that the fact that Facebook, Twitter, etc. are more about connection than community, and you can readily see that the kind of community fostered by these things is no replacement for real, gut-level, face-to-face suffer-through-life-together community. Don't miss the fact that these things can foster connections for people in that kind of real-life community, but it can never replace it with something that deep. I sometimes wonder if we are mistaking the marketing of self for the building of real community.
Jesus was clear on the fact that it's not what's outside of me - Facebook, Twitter, etc. - that's the problem. Rather, it's what's inside of me - my dark and sinful heart that's prone torwards all things wrong - that requires my vigilance, my attention, and His grace. I need to remember that as I endeavor to use the structures I've been given in a direction that glorifies the Giver.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
collecting raindrops
After a few days of the sun Portlanders so love, it's back to rain today. That's ok.
Just a quick note with some good news: after completing a week of training courses in Albany, Jared is officially on call for the private fire crew ASP. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the fires to start... Which with this weather, who knows.
Just a quick note with some good news: after completing a week of training courses in Albany, Jared is officially on call for the private fire crew ASP. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the fires to start... Which with this weather, who knows.
Friday, March 26, 2010
1995 NFL Mail Bag: The Detroit Lions
In fact, however, Fontes was just a football coach, and from the looks of it not too shabby of one either. The Lions would win two NFC Central titles and make the playoffs four times under Fontes, as well as securing two more postseason berths before the decade was out. That's six if you're counting, which means in the 1990s, if you look up postseason participants in a given year the Lions are more likely to be among them than not.
Yeah, this is the same team that went 0-16 two years ago.
It was so good that you'd think the Honolulu Blue and Silver could have sent me more than three pieces of paper and a poster, but all in all, considering what other teams sent me this was actually a pretty decent take. It's one of my favorites actually and I'll give you the two reasons why.
For starters, like every team the Lions sent me the requisite "thanks for writing letter" and I'm always intrigued by what the letterhead will look like. Not only is the letterhead for the Lions in color, but you'll notice the awesome graphic in the upper left corner. Yeah, that's the Lions logo from 1961-69. I totally dig it, and I love that they still use it. Either that or they have an absurdly large amount of leftover stationary from the 1960s.
The paper ends with Detroit's loss in the 1991 NFC Championship Game against the eventual Super Bowl Champion Redskins, and yes, it is still hard to imagine the Lions in a Conference Championship Game, but looking back on it and knowing that three seasons passed between that "history" of the Lions being written and me receiving the mail, I find it hard to believe they felt they could ignore the two playoff berths and the divisional title they won in that period.
Something tells me they cling to those a little more strongly now.
Most peculiar on this list of potential player purchases to me, however, was Lomas Brown, whom I most vividly remember for saying the words, "I'm so proud to be a New York Giant" following Big Blue's win in the 2000 NFC Championship Game when he was on New York's offensive line. This prompted two questions from me, namely A) Lomas Brown was on the Lions? and B) Who on Earth would want a glossy photo print of Lomas Brown?
Why?
It is a hilariously awful and kitschy product that represents the essence of 1990s football marketing. Much along the lines of the ad Bill Parcells did for Apex in my Patriots mail, this poster of Mitchell, who was both a perfectly good and yet eminently forgettable player echoes to a bygone era when Starter actually produced paraphernalia for NFL teams. And it was available at J.C. Penny. Not only is the sideline merchandise he's modeling in the lower left corner a heartwarming reminder of watching football as a child but perhaps most importantly, look at that hair.
Seriously, look at how awesome that is.
Lastly, and this is one of the most amazing parts of the poster, while playing an NFL Game, it really looks like he's wearing, yup, you guessed it, Reebok Pumps. Come on, you remember Pumps, right?
What this package contained was not only a decent amount of swag but about three dozen cheerful reminders of watching football in my childhood. Aside from a few laughs, a walk down football memory lane is really about the best I can hope for while sifting through these.In the case of the Lions, even if they can no longer do it on the field, at least in my heart this was an unmitigated success. Reading through all of it was just the right thing to cheer me up after I realized that I slept through all of Geelong's season opening win over Essendon this morning. Don't worry, ESPN360.com lets you watch replays of it. I speculate that I slept through it because I was just too exhausted by last night's phenomenal Kansas State-Xavier Sweet Sixteen game.
And so, because of this, I thank the Lions for getting my day started properly. If this didn't excite you, dear reader, perhaps learning about tonight's Sabres-Senators match will, though I'm skeptical.
If neither of those do the trick, well, I'm sure you'll all find some way to survive. It is Friday after all. Have a good weekend, everyone.
Really? . . . .
On Sunday night I stopped at a Kiosk in the Cincinnati airport to pick up something to eat. While standing at the register I scanned the magazine rack behind the cashier to see if there was anything interesting that might catch my eye. My eyes stopped on the cover of the March 2010 edition of Maxim. Here's what I saw. . . .
What caught my eye was the text towards the top right side of the cover. It seems the only thing Tiger Woods did wrong was get caught.
Imagine what the fallout would have been if this cover and the accompanying article hit news stands thirty or forty years ago. We live in a different world. We've got our work cut out for us.
What caught my eye was the text towards the top right side of the cover. It seems the only thing Tiger Woods did wrong was get caught.
Imagine what the fallout would have been if this cover and the accompanying article hit news stands thirty or forty years ago. We live in a different world. We've got our work cut out for us.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Girlfriend of the Week
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Let me guess, you never heard of her? Well allow me to educate you folks. She is the brother of Dream and she is exactly what her name says, she is death.
Fortunately she is not the scary Grim Reaper kind of death figure everyone is used to. Instead she is a pretty sweet girl. For example, she visit's a friend of Dream and says that if he wants to, he can die whenever he wants (way too long to explain).
He asks what happens when you die, she asks what he thinks happens. He then says he believes that it is like some poet (I cannot remember which poet). She then says that is exactly what happens.
Interesting, the afterlife is whatever you envision. People who go to hell, that is what the truly believe should happen to them.
Also, she is pretty damn cute. I would not mind having her come pay me a visit when my time is up.
MonsterQuest Fail
I usually do not watch Monster Quest on the History Channel. Mainly because it is really dumb, and they never come close to finding anything. Most likely because none of these things exist. Last night I ended up watching one of the episodes.
The episode focused on werewolves, and they were trying to find a bipedal wolf-like creature up in Michigan. They call the thing the Michigan Dogman. Most of the stories and evidence was really lame. People seeing a regular wolf or a bear...
Then before a commercial break they say that coming up next there is exclusive footage of the legendary beast. That piqued my interest. Apparently the film was discovered in a box of junk that was purchased at an estate sale. It was filmed on 8MM and was given to a Michigan DJ (one who wrote a song back in the 80s about the Dogman).
They call it the Gable Film and I decided to Google it. I found a paranormal message board where people were discussing it. Apparently people think it was a silver-back gorilla because of the way it moves. The one thing most people and even the animal experts on History Channel, a human could not move like that, it is too fluid.
As the show comes to an end, the DJ admits that the film was a hoax! They meet the guy who made it. He said that he used an old camera and that all the stuff in the film is junk he has at his house. He dressed up in this suit and just ran across the ground. When you see him recreate it, he moves almost exactly like the film.
How funny is that? Every time there is some video footage of Bigfoot or some stupid monster like this, they immediately bring in these behavioral biometrics experts to prove that a human cannot move that way. They always talk about the gait, which seems to me that there has not been enough study done or these people have no clue what they are talking about.
I realize that people want to believe in weird monsters, but they are not real. People just need to accept that fact.
The episode focused on werewolves, and they were trying to find a bipedal wolf-like creature up in Michigan. They call the thing the Michigan Dogman. Most of the stories and evidence was really lame. People seeing a regular wolf or a bear...
Then before a commercial break they say that coming up next there is exclusive footage of the legendary beast. That piqued my interest. Apparently the film was discovered in a box of junk that was purchased at an estate sale. It was filmed on 8MM and was given to a Michigan DJ (one who wrote a song back in the 80s about the Dogman).
They call it the Gable Film and I decided to Google it. I found a paranormal message board where people were discussing it. Apparently people think it was a silver-back gorilla because of the way it moves. The one thing most people and even the animal experts on History Channel, a human could not move like that, it is too fluid.
As the show comes to an end, the DJ admits that the film was a hoax! They meet the guy who made it. He said that he used an old camera and that all the stuff in the film is junk he has at his house. He dressed up in this suit and just ran across the ground. When you see him recreate it, he moves almost exactly like the film.
How funny is that? Every time there is some video footage of Bigfoot or some stupid monster like this, they immediately bring in these behavioral biometrics experts to prove that a human cannot move that way. They always talk about the gait, which seems to me that there has not been enough study done or these people have no clue what they are talking about.
I realize that people want to believe in weird monsters, but they are not real. People just need to accept that fact.
18 Hours Until Geelong's First Bounce
Perhaps one of the biggest highlights of my recent jaunt to Israel was a chance encounter with a group of Australian teenagers at our hostel in Jerusalem. No, not that kind of chance encounter. This was a collection of 18-year-old men who hailed from Sydney, and what made the meeting so exciting for me is that it provided a rare opportunity to talk football.
Not this kind of football, or this kind of football. And, uh, certainly not this kind of football.
I'm talking about footy, AFL, Aussie Rules. This kind of football.
Happy to deliver the news we riffed about Gary Ablett and Leo Barry, names that you surely have never heard of before, and both of us compared our own joy over sportsfandom triumphs, in my case Super Bowl XLII, in his Sydney's nail-biting win over West Coast in the 2005 Grand Final, ending a 72-year title drought for the Swannies.
My favorite moment probably came when he asked me if Tom Brady was a huge celebrity in America. I suppose I would have sounded just as silly if I queried about the Australian popularity of Nick Riewoldt.
I mention this because, as I'm sure you all know, Geelong opens its 2010 campaign tomorrow at the bright and early hour of 4:40 a.m. ET against the Essendon Bombers. Now, surely I would be crazy to wake up early enough to watch this showdown at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, but I never claimed to be sane, and I will be in front of the computer with my navy and white hoops on. If anyone wants to come over to watch the excitement, let me know. There will be beer. And chips.
Surely you're all wondering how you can watch tomorrow. While AFL was dropped from its contract with the premium channel Setanta Sports a year ago, ESPN360.com, or as it will be known next month, ESPN3.com, is showing several live matches every weekend, while ESPN2 will have a few live matches throughout the summer, as well as a live broadcast of the 2010 Grand Final on September 25th.
My Cats are defending champions, as some of you may recall, after topping St. Kilda in a thrilling Grand Final last fall. They're coming off their second premiership in three years and third straight appearance in the AFL's championship match, but there are many issues the team is sorting through as the season begins. For starters, tomorrow's game will be the 200th in the Geelong career of Joel Corey, a man responsible for one of the biggest plays in Geelong history as you can see above. Other topics concern whether or not the young Tom Hawkins is due to break out and become a start, how the team will manage in its first year without captain Tom Harley, who retired this offseason and the always tense saga of whether or not Ablett, last year's Brownlow Medalist and considered by many to be the best in the game, will leave Geelong for a lucrative offer with upstart Gold Coast, which begins play as the AFL's 17th franchise next year. The potential distraction, as well as the aging roster even has some of the Cats players thinking this will be their last chance before the window of opportunity closes to take another title.
Get excited.
Oh yeah, basketball. That NCAA Tournament thing starts again today, and while I will be watching, I'll mostly be rooting for Cornell to knock off Kentucky, thereby ensuring that none of my Final Four teams make it to the Elite Eight and clinching my worst bracket ever. To be honest, at this point I'm far more interested with seeing if the Nets can win one more game (they defeated the Kings last night) to stave off the sole position as the worst team in NBA history. I feel that if Kentucky does, in fact lose to Cornell today, John Calipari, who ironically never had a team this bad when he coached the Nets, will probably take it with more grace than Nets CEO Brett Yormark.
Stay Classy, New Jersey.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Sure, Let's Make Overtime Confusing
So you can probably tell from this that my brother does not particularly like football.
Given that, you can imagine my surprise, when it was him of all people who broke the news to me that the NFL had voted to change its playoff overtime rules. Now, I wasn't completely oblivious. I knew it was being voted on, I just hadn't heard that the changes went through. Evidently some other major vote had been stealing headlines from it all week.
Now if a postseason game goes to overtime, the team that receives the opening kickoff will end the game only if they score a touchdown on their first possession. If all they can muster is a field goal, the other team will have an opportunity to respond. If the second team scores a touchdown, they win, if the second team doesn't score at all, they lose, and if the second team scores a field goal the game then moves to sudden death.
My brother and a few other friends had been asking me what my take on it was, no doubt expecting some massively informed and passionate response, but my initial reaction was..... "meh". The changes didn't bother me, but I hardly felt they were necessary. My take on NFL overtime had always been that it was fine for two reasons.
2) Defense is half of the game too, isn't it? If you want to beat someone, don't let them score.
That right there was more or less my take on it, but after the rule passed yesterday I decided to do some research and my only assumption can be that apparently the NFL broadcasters have been lying to me. It turns out the chances of winning the game after winning the toss were 46.8% from 1974-1993. According to most statistics I've found now, however, the probability of winning a sudden death overtime game with the toss -- since the overtime rule was instituted in 1974 -- was actually around 52%. The chances of losing were 44% and the remaining 4% represents ties. While this is more than 48% it still isn't that significant, and so, I felt, the need to change the rules was somewhat overblown.
Is it possible this is a statistical anomaly? Sure. But that hardly seems likely.
No one really knows how the new rules will play, though one analysis I've read pins the odds of winning the game along with the coin toss at roughly 56%, which is not great, but still an improvement.
While I have no doubt that these changes have been under discussion for years, many have opined that they were finally pushed to the fore after the New Orleans Saints won the NFC Championship this year with a field goal on the opening drive of overtime. Interestingly, the victim of that win, the Minnesota Vikings, were one of four teams to vote against the change, which may put the kibosh on that theory.
Either way, however, it's important not to get too crazy about this because, frankly, it isn't going to make a dramatic impact. Remember, this change is just for the playoffs, not the regular season, and we haven't exactly had a rash of postseason overtime games. In fact, as Peter King notes, we've only had an average of 1.2 overtime games a year in the playoffs, so this isn't exactly something that will come into play every day.
Ha. My how times change.
Since then, there have been seven postseason games in a span of eight years. All of one of them, this year's NFC title game, were won on a first-possession field goal. So really, the impact of this rule change seems far overblown if it doesn't take effect during the regular season as well. That may eventually happen, but for now it seems the effect will be minimal at best, just so long as we don't have Phil Luckett officiating the toss. That generally doesn't work out for the best.
At the very least, we can probably assume that all this overtime talk has reassured Donovan McNabb at long last that there won't be a tie in the Super Bowl.
Silence. . . .
This morning, I decided to follow-up a conversation I had last weekend with a concerned mom by penning a response for the April 2010 edition of our CPYU Parent Page. Here's what I wrote. . . . and I'd love to get some dialouge going on this. . .
A few days ago I was speaking on youth culture at a church that sits directly across the street from the local high school. I had challenged those in attendance to reach out to the large population of broken and confused kids who walked the halls of that school each and every day. Afterwards, a woman shared a concern and asked a question. She explained that she was part of a group of Christians who were working to get the school to ban the upcoming “Day of Silence.” “What can we do to stop it?” she asked.
If you’re in the dark regarding the “Day of Silence,” here’s an explanation: Founded in 1996 at the University of Virginia, the “Day of Silence” is billed by organizers as the largest student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Scheduled to be held on Friday, April 16, hundreds of thousands of students in middle schools, high schools, and colleges across America will take a vow of silence in an effort to encourage their schools and peers to address the problem of anti lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender behavior. The event is now officially sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
After pondering the woman’s question for a few moments, I offered a response that I think surprised her. My response was rooted in a couple of realities. First, but not foremost, there’s my own experience of harassing people during my high school years, something rooted in my own adolescent insecurities. You know – putting others down to feel better about myself. While I’m ashamed to admit it, my behavior included harassment of peers who were rumored to be homosexuals. Second, and foremost, is my understanding of who God is, who He’s made people to be, and who He’s called His followers to be. . . especially to those who, like you and me, are sinners desperately in need of God’s saving grace.
And so I told her this. . . First, I believe that God has established sexuality as a good and wonderful gift that is to be experienced and celebrated with great freedom within the bounds of His order and design. Because our world is fallen and broken, there will be sinful distortions of that plan that we are to avoid including adultery, fornication, pornography, sexual abuse, lust, and homosexuality. . . among other things. We are to teach these truths to our children without hesitation.
Second, banning the “Day of Silence” only deals with symptoms of deeper issues. Shouldn’t we be concerned about the hearts from which the issues come? And while we’re talking about hearts from which the issues come, what about the hearts from which hate and ignorance flow. . . . especially when those hearts belong to those who claim to follow Christ?
Third, we can’t force anyone to follow Jesus. Only God’s Spirit is able to draw people to Himself. While we can’t strong-arm people into the Kingdom of God, we can and must choose to follow Jesus ourselves. Following Jesus means facing our Pharisaical tendencies/sins head-on, while loving sinners as Jesus has loved them (and us!. . . because we’re in that group too). Loving on sinners is our calling, just as our calling is to hate and avoid sin.
Finally, I asked her this question: “Have you ever thought about acting on your rightful concern by sitting down and spending some time getting to know and listening to the kids who are planning the ‘Day of Silence’ at your school?” She paused. . . as I guess most of us would. . . and said “no.” I then challenged her to find out the names of the kids, invite them out to Starbucks, and then sit with no agenda other than to listen and love.
What would happen if we would stop working so hard to “protect” our kids by legislating morality, and start “providing spiritually” for our kids by modeling how to take the Gospel to those who are hungry for Heaven? I’m learning that while it’s easier to wish and work away differences I might not like, Jesus is calling me to go as His ambassador to people He’s called me to love. Then, He’ll take care of the rest.
A few days ago I was speaking on youth culture at a church that sits directly across the street from the local high school. I had challenged those in attendance to reach out to the large population of broken and confused kids who walked the halls of that school each and every day. Afterwards, a woman shared a concern and asked a question. She explained that she was part of a group of Christians who were working to get the school to ban the upcoming “Day of Silence.” “What can we do to stop it?” she asked.
If you’re in the dark regarding the “Day of Silence,” here’s an explanation: Founded in 1996 at the University of Virginia, the “Day of Silence” is billed by organizers as the largest student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Scheduled to be held on Friday, April 16, hundreds of thousands of students in middle schools, high schools, and colleges across America will take a vow of silence in an effort to encourage their schools and peers to address the problem of anti lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender behavior. The event is now officially sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
After pondering the woman’s question for a few moments, I offered a response that I think surprised her. My response was rooted in a couple of realities. First, but not foremost, there’s my own experience of harassing people during my high school years, something rooted in my own adolescent insecurities. You know – putting others down to feel better about myself. While I’m ashamed to admit it, my behavior included harassment of peers who were rumored to be homosexuals. Second, and foremost, is my understanding of who God is, who He’s made people to be, and who He’s called His followers to be. . . especially to those who, like you and me, are sinners desperately in need of God’s saving grace.
And so I told her this. . . First, I believe that God has established sexuality as a good and wonderful gift that is to be experienced and celebrated with great freedom within the bounds of His order and design. Because our world is fallen and broken, there will be sinful distortions of that plan that we are to avoid including adultery, fornication, pornography, sexual abuse, lust, and homosexuality. . . among other things. We are to teach these truths to our children without hesitation.
Second, banning the “Day of Silence” only deals with symptoms of deeper issues. Shouldn’t we be concerned about the hearts from which the issues come? And while we’re talking about hearts from which the issues come, what about the hearts from which hate and ignorance flow. . . . especially when those hearts belong to those who claim to follow Christ?
Third, we can’t force anyone to follow Jesus. Only God’s Spirit is able to draw people to Himself. While we can’t strong-arm people into the Kingdom of God, we can and must choose to follow Jesus ourselves. Following Jesus means facing our Pharisaical tendencies/sins head-on, while loving sinners as Jesus has loved them (and us!. . . because we’re in that group too). Loving on sinners is our calling, just as our calling is to hate and avoid sin.
Finally, I asked her this question: “Have you ever thought about acting on your rightful concern by sitting down and spending some time getting to know and listening to the kids who are planning the ‘Day of Silence’ at your school?” She paused. . . as I guess most of us would. . . and said “no.” I then challenged her to find out the names of the kids, invite them out to Starbucks, and then sit with no agenda other than to listen and love.
What would happen if we would stop working so hard to “protect” our kids by legislating morality, and start “providing spiritually” for our kids by modeling how to take the Gospel to those who are hungry for Heaven? I’m learning that while it’s easier to wish and work away differences I might not like, Jesus is calling me to go as His ambassador to people He’s called me to love. Then, He’ll take care of the rest.
Lost: Episode 609
Richard's History
Richard's story starts on the Canary Islands. He accidentally kills a doctor while trying to get medicine for his wife, Isabella. She dies. Richard is arrested. A priest tells him that he can never be absolved for his sins. A naval officer comes and purchases Richard and asks him if wants to go to the new world. He then says that Richard is the property of Magnus Hanso.
We then see the Black Rock sailing the high seas and crash into the Island, smashing into the statue. Richard and some other guys are chained in the hold. The officer comes down and starts killing them since he figures if they are free they will kill the officers.
The smoke monster comes and kills the officer and then stares at Richard and then leaves. For a few days, Richard tries to escape, but to no avail. Isabella comes to visit him, says that they are in Hell and that the devil is coming. She tries to run, but we hear the smoke monster get her.
Then, the Man in Black comes to visit Richard. He frees him from his chains and says that he must kill the devil in order to get his wife back. He gives Richard the knife (the one that Dogon gave Sayid) and tells him to stab him before he has a chance to speak.
Richard heads to the statue and all of a sudden, Jacob comes out of nowhere and beats the crap out of Richard. He explains that he is not the devil and that this is not hell. In order to convince Richard, he dunks him in the ocean a few times. Once they are seated, Jacob explains a few things.
He says that the Man in Black is evil or a malevolence that needs to be contained, like the one in a bottle. The island is the cork. Jacob says that he brings people to the Island to prove to the Man in Black that humans are not all corruptable and bad. Unfortunately, Jacob cannot interfere with them, yet the Man in Black can, so he offers Richard a job to act as his advisor/representative.
Richard then asks if he can have his wife back, which Jacob replies that he cannot do that. His next request is for his sins to be absolved. Jacob cannot do that one. Richard then says that he does not want to die then because he does not want to go Hell. Jacob can do that.
Richard then goes to the Man in Black and gives him a white rock as a gift from Jacob. The Man in Black informs Richard that if he ever changes his mind, the offer to join him is still on the table.
Later Jacob and the Man in Black sit together. Jacob is astounded that the Man in Black tried to kill him. Man in Black says that he wants to leave the island and that he will eventually kill him. Jacob says that someone will replace him. He then gives Man in Black the wine bottle and says that he will see him later. Man in Black smashes the bottle and says to himself "sooner than you think."
Back to the Present
Ilana explains to everyone that Richard will know what to do next. Unfortunately Richard is now a good bit crazy and says that he needs to go talk to someone else. He goes back to where he buried his wife's necklace and shouts that he has changed his mind.
Out of nowhere comes Hurley, who says he has a message from Isabella. Basically she forgives him and he puts the necklace back on. Hurley then says that Isabella said to never let the Man in Black escape the island or else everyone will go to Hell.
Thoughts
This was definitely a good episode, and the thing that amazes me is how much people over think everything. People putting way too many rules on what Richard can do and what his role was. Basically he is exactly what people said, the representative of Jacob. He does not age and cannot kill himself.
I really thought that Jacob was going to say the Man in Black's name, but I guess they are holding that one back for a few more episodes.
Interesting sidebar, the actor who plays Jacob, also plays Lucifer on Supernatural.
It was pretty cool to see Hurley as the one who reasons with Richard. Glad that Hurley has went from bumbling idiot to the guy who knows things and seems to be a major player in this game. Unfortunately, I do not believe he will be Jacob's replacement. Can you imagine people coming to the island and Hurley being like "Okay, dude listen up. You must not be bad, okay? Cool."
That is why that Jack is really the best candidate. Plus he has always been the one to oppose the real Locke at every turn. I think he would be the right choice.
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