Another hiatus – this one less fun

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I’ve gone on blogging hiatus a couple of times over the last couple of years – once for our trip to France, another for our trip to the UK. You may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything in a couple of weeks, so I’m on another hiatus, but this one was more forced. And a lot less fun.

On February 5, I was taken to Grand River hospital in Kitchener with acute pancreatitis, which basically means that my pancreas had a complete mental breakdown and started trying to dissolve itself. I have been in the hospital ever since, and likely will be for at least another couple of weeks. I will write more about the details later, but suffice it to say that blogging will be light if not nonexistent for the next little while.

I shall return!

Our Saviour comes through big

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This past weekend, in a nutshell, is why the Leafs hired Brian Burke. When he was hired, the masses rejoiced. Our Saviour had arrived and was going to transform the team from a laughing stock to a Cup contender. For a while, he didn’t do much of significance, and then he traded two first round draft choices for Phil Kessel. There were mixed emotions about that one – many thought it was a great move, bringing in a young stud goal scorer and giving up nothing. Others said “Nothing? You call giving up two first round draft picks (and a second!) nothing?” When the Leafs started the season with 3 wins in their first 20 games, the possibility of giving a first overall draft pick for Kessel became very real. People started questioning whether Burke was indeed the right guy. And then came January 31, 2010 – the day everything changed.

The biggest complaint about the Leafs this year has been goaltending – in particular, Vesa Toskala. Ever since the day the Leafs acquired Toskala, there has been talk that he’s a good backup but wasn’t starting goalie material, and he seems to have proven that in his time with the Leafs. Jason Blake, meanwhile, scored 40 goals in 82 games the season before being signed by the Leafs, and 50 goals in 216 games as a Leaf. He was eating up a ton of cap space for not much production. If Burke managed to get rid of the two of them for nothing, I think it would have made the team better – addition by subtraction. Yet Burkie managed to convince Anaheim to take a struggling goalie and an overpaid non-scoring forward for a quality starting goaltender. Of course, Giguère would have been a very high-priced backup in Anaheim anyway, so maybe it’s a push for them.

Then there’s the Calgary deal. They sent four players to Calgary and got three back. Let’s say for the sake of argument that the Leafs are a contending team in, say, four years. What are the odds that all four of Stajan, Mayers, Hagman, and White are on that contending team? Not very high. So the Leafs gave up a bunch of players that don’t likely fit into their long-term plans (well, maybe White) for a former Norris trophy nominee (not even two years ago) and two prospects. Is it possible that Phaneuf was a flash-in-the-pan and his best days are behind him? Well, sure it’s possible, but he’s only 24, so it’s not likely. I heard an interview with a Calgary sports report the other day saying that Phaneuf was no longer “fitting in” with his teammates or coaching staff in Calgary, so perhaps a change of scenery is what he needs to turn his game around. Then again, I can think of a number of players who were sent packing from Toronto only to find success elsewhere (happens a lot in baseball – Jeff Kent, Woody Williams, Chris Carpenter…), and not that many who did it the other way. As Bob McCown wrote, “The list of players who have regressed after landing in The Big Smoke is very, very, very long.” But even if Phaneuf never wins a Norris, he’s still a very good defenseman.

Now, I’m not saying that the Leafs will make the playoffs this year or win the Cup next year because of this deal. But now the Leafs have a stud front-line scorer (age 22), two top-tier defensemen (ages 24 and 31), a goaltender who’s been a Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe trophy winner, and a highly-touted young goalie backing him up. That sounds like a pretty good nucleus to build around, and it’s a helluva lot better than they had when Mr. Burke was hired.

Rock destroy Knighthawks

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Holy cow, what a game. This is what Rock lacrosse was back in the early 2000’s – Lots of offense, strong defense, outstanding goaltending, smart play and just an all-round exciting game. I’m ready to give new Rock owner Jamie Dawick the NLL 2010 Executive of the Year award right now. Can we please just forget that the whole Kloepfer era happened? I don’t know who those guys wearing the Knighthawks jerseys were, but they certainly didn’t play like the Knighthawks I predicted would win the east this year. John Grant had a terrible game – he was dropping the ball left and right. He should have been given assists on two of the first three Rock goals, because they resulted directly from balls he dropped. Grant took a stupid and unnecessary penalty in the first quarter (as he always does when frustrated), though he managed to keep his head for the rest of the game. Gary Gait was held pointless, as were the Knighthawks, since Craig Point was invisible (see what I did there?). Pat O’Toole made some good stops here and there, but… well let’s just say that he didn’t have his best game ever.

Garrett Billings, on the other hand, was everywhere, scoring 5 and adding 3 assists. Other than Billings, the Rock goals were quite spread out, as nine other players scored at least once. Bob Watson was unbelievable in goal, and now has a microscopic GAA of 5.47 after 3 games. The Rock defense was also awesome. I remember reading off the names of the Knighthawks on the floor during their first offense shift – I believe my exact words were “Grant, Williams, Gait, Point, and Bomberry. Ouch.” But those five players were held to a combined total of three points. As I said Watson was outstanding at stopping the shots that got to him, but there were an awful lot of shots that were never made because the Rock defense knocked the ball away, grabbed it out of the air, or just prevented the Knighthawks from getting open enough to even take a shot.

It wasn’t that rough of a game, until near the end when it was pretty much over anyway, and even then it was only two players that caused all the roughness, both of whom are named Evans. Rochester had nine penalties all night, and only one wasn’t by a guy named Evans – that being Grant’s roughing call in the first. Shawn got three minors and a fighting major, and Scott got four minors. In addition, both should have been given at least unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, since they wouldn’t stop chirping at the refs, even after sitting in the penalty box. I get the two of them confused – since there’s two players on the team named “Evans”, their first initial should be on their uniforms as well, like the Rock did with the Sandersons – oh, wait. Anyway, one of them asked the penalty box door guy to open the door a couple of times so he could go back out and yell at the ref some more. Lucky for him the door guy didn’t do it – leaving the penalty box before your penalty is over gets you a misconduct penalty and an automatic game suspension. I almost expected one of them to pull a Pat Coyle and deck the ref.

There are players in pro sports who are just pests. They’re irritating and get on your nerves, but are undoubtedly great players. Scott Stevens was one, as is Sean Avery. Tie Domi as well, though his skill level was lower. In lacrosse you’ve got your Evans brothers, Mark Steenhuis, and Brian Langtry – Kim Squire was another one early in his career. Quite honestly, I find John Tavares is like that too. In many of these cases, you hate playing against them, but would give anything to get them on your team – Tavares, Stevens and Langtry are great examples of this. For me, the Evans brothers, like Avery, do not fall into this last category. They’re great players, no question, and they’re passionate and they play hard – attributes that I like in athletes. But playing hard doesn’t mean punching people in the head when trying to get the ball from them. It doesn’t mean crosschecking the goalie. It doesn’t mean hitting a player into the boards from behind and then throwing up your hands as if to say “What did I do?” when you get a penalty for it. And it certainly doesn’t mean whining to the refs about every single call that goes against your team. Playing hard and being passionate is great and all that, but it has to be combined with sportsmanship, and I didn’t see a lot of that from the Evans boys tonight. Having said that, full props to both of them for taking part in the customary handshakes after the game – I have seen other players lose it completely near the end of a blowout and are either escorted off the floor or simply walk off without shaking hands. I guess there’s some sportsmanship in there.

At the end of the game, the Rock announcer said that the Rock would be playing “this same Knighthawks team” in Rochester next week, and I said to my friend “He’s wrong. That game will not feature the same Knighthawks team. And if it does, Paul Gait should be fired.” The Rock ran roughshod over the Blazers in week 1, only to see a very different Boston team the next week. It will largely be the same players playing, but I suspect the Knighthawks of next week’s game will be quite different from the guys who played tonight. That will be an entertaining game, just as this one was.

Jim Veltman – Mammoth Head Coach?

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The Mammoth fired their head coach the other day after a 0-2 start, and GM Steve Govett, who’s never coached a lacrosse game in his life, has announced that he will be taking over as coach. We’ll see how long that lasts. But if he’s looking for a new head coach that does have some lacrosse coaching experience, former Rock captain Jim Veltman is available. The Mammoth had some interest in Veltman a couple of years ago, asking him to retire to join their coaching staff. He declined, played one more year, and then retired to join the Rock’s coaching staff. The entire staff other than Veltman was then unceremoniously fired a couple of months into the next year, and it was announced that Veltman would join the front office in an unspecified position. As far as I can remember, the Rock have never mentioned his name again.

Veltman has never been a head coach at the NLL level, but he was one of Glenn Clark’s assistant coaches for a short while. He has been coach (for a while, a player-coach) of the OLA’s Ajax-Pickering Rock for a while, so he certainly has coaching experience.

If Veltman is hired by the Mammoth, just remember folks – you heard it here first.

Book Review: Memories of the Future Vol. 1

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Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of my all-time favourite TV shows. I watched it religiously when it was on in the late 80’s and early 90’s and I bought each season on DVD as soon as it was released. I also enjoy former TNG cast member Wil Wheaton’s writing, so imagine my excitement when he started writing reviews of TNG episodes a couple of years ago. He wrote an article about every ten years or so – OK, it was more often than that, but that’s how it seemed when you were patiently (or not) waiting for the next one to come out. He posted links to them on his blog, and then gathered them all up, did a few more, and put them in a book called Memories of the Future. There will be at least two volumes; each covering one half of the first season of TNG; only Volume One has been released. I don’t know how much further he’ll go – I asked him on twitter if he was planning on continuing the books or podcasts right up to season 7, but he never responded. Geez, you get 1.6 million followers and suddenly you don’t respond to questions? Bastard. I’d respond to you, @wilw.

Anyway, this book is a must for TNG fans. Wil rips each episode apart, telling you what was good and what was bad, which is fun to read because there were a number of really bad episodes in the first season. There is a lot of humour in the episode recaps and technobabble, and I found the behind-the-scenes memories really interesting.

Wil also gives some insight into the whole TV industry and how it works – like when person X is writes a script for an episode, but then their original script is hacked and changed without their knowledge by someone else who doesn’t get credit. By the end of the process, the writing of this really bad episode is still credited to person X, who really had nothing to do with how bad it is. It seems unfair, but that’s how it works. Wil pulls no punches, naming names on who were the worst writers, directors, and guest actors that he worked with.

Wil is very complimentary to the other cast members of TNG, particularly Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, who are indeed excellent actors. One person he’s not very complimentary to, however, is himself. He seems convinced that he was the worst actor on the set, and that a large contributing factor to that is his youth. A number of times he mentions that if he wasn’t such a self-absorbed teenager at the time, he might have done a better job. Of course “self-absorbed teenager” is a redundancy, and Wil himself does acknowledge this at one point, when he tells the story of apologizing to (I think) Patrick Stewart for being the way he was when he was a teenager and not appreciating things as he should have. Stewart tells him that everyone at the time understood that he was a teenager, and that that attitude came with the territory. Of course, some of this self-deprecation could just be modesty – he only makes a point of mentioning when he did a lousy job. Perhaps there were a number of episodes where he thought he did a great job, but he decided to keep the “Wow, my performance was really great in this episode” thoughts to himself.

Wil was also doing weekly podcasts called “Memories of the Futurecast”, where he would read part of his review of one episode a week. In many cases, he’d expand on the stuff in the book, or mention memories that had come up since the book was written or that he didn’t include in the book for whatever reason. Those were pretty cool too – Wil is a good storyteller and is also pretty funny, though I find sometimes that the funny loses steam fairly quickly. In one or two of the podcasts he mimicked a conversation between himself and some pretend person – the first two or three lines were pretty funny, but then he kept going and the next seven or eight lines were just not. More is not always better. It’s kind of like my seven-year-old: “if I say or do something and daddy laughs, then obviously if I do it every ten seconds for the next hour, it remains funny.” Wil doesn’t go that far, but there have been a few times where he starts one of these jokes or “conversations” and after the second or third line I think to myself “OK, that was funny, but stop there. Please just stop there.” and he doesn’t. These long drawn-out jokes don’t appear in the book though, just the podcast.

The one thing I don’t like about the book is the language – there’s a fair bit of cursing and some sexual language and stuff like that. This is true of all of his podcasts actually, he’s quite the little potty mouth. It doesn’t bother me directly – I’m no language prude, and some parts of this book are quite hilarious because of the language. Example: when talking about Q giving them the whole Farpoint thing as a test, Wil explains why this will not be a problem: “in Starfleet, we save the universe and fuck the green alien chick before breakfast. We got this one.” My problem is that my 10- and 7-year-old sons are both TNG fans (ironically, Wesley Crusher is their favourite character along with Data) and I think they would get a big kick out of some of these stories, but it’s just not appropriate for kids that age to read about anyone fucking green alien chicks, or any other colour of alien chick for that matter. Perhaps I can find some stories that the boys would like and read parts to them.

As I said, if you’re a TNG fan, you owe it to yourself to check this book out, or at the very least, find the reviews through his blog. I am anxiously awaiting volume 2 and any subsequent volumes.

Weirdest. Lacrosse game. Ever.

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The 2010 Rock home opener was last night at the ACC, and it was a great game – it was very physical, the score was close throughout, and it went to overtime. There was a lot of fighting and tons of penalties. It was also rather weird, in that there were a number of things that happened that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, but more on that later. The Rock won it 8-7, with rookie Garrett Billings scoring the winner in OT after a beautiful behind-the-back pass from Colin Doyle. It was very nice to Doyle back in a Rock uniform after being traded away three years ago in one of the worst trades in Rock history.

Doyle is known for being a scorer and team leader, and you will never find a better clutch player anywhere, but he’s a pretty tough dude as well. He doesn’t fight much – I’m sure his coaches won’t generally let him since he can’t score from the penalty box – but it happens, and five minutes into his Rock return, he got involved (and held his own, I thought) with Boston’s Paul Dawson, who’s known to be a good fighter. Of course, Boston losing Paul Dawson for nine minutes (roughing + facemasking + fighting major) is a little easier for the Blazers to take than Toronto losing Doyle for nine. But after Doyle and Dawson were in the box, and before the next whistle was even blown, four other fights broke out around the benches. The refs let them all go until the players decided that they had had enough and just walked away, and then all eight players were given game misconducts. Luckily for the Rock, Boston lost league MVP Dan Dawson and a couple of other offensive guys, while two of the players the Rock lost weren’t likely to see much floor time anyway. The unmistakeable message from the Rock was “You will not touch our captain.” I am not a fan of fighting in lacrosse or hockey, and I think starting four fights was a bit extreme, but I did stand and applaud as the Rock players headed to the dressing room after standing up for their teammate and captain.

As rare as a Colin Doyle fight is, there were a number of things in that game I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a lacrosse game before – and I’ve seen every Rock home game but one in the last nine years:

  • Four separate fights on the floor at the same time
  • Eight players ejected at once
  • Coincident facemasking penalties (I’m not sure I’ve ever seen facemasking penalties at all, actually)
  • Goaltender leaving the crease penalty
  • Unsportsmanlike diving penalty
  • Dan Dawson fighting – Dawson pounded the snot out of Pat McCready, who’s a decent fighter himself. I suppose being 6-foot-5 and consistently punching downwards helps

The first quarter alone must have taken 45 minutes to play. Things settled down after that, mainly because neither team could afford to lose more players. Losing Dan Dawson really hurt the Blazers offense, while the Rock defense was decimated – all four Rock players tossed were defenders. There were times when both Doyle and Manning were playing D – I figured that they just got caught on the floor during a quick transition, but then realized that they had to play defense because almost half of their defenders were in the dressing room.

Bob Watson now has a GAA of less than 7.00 after two games, which is pretty unbelievable. He made some pretty key saves in OT, but throughout the game, Cosmo was even better. If not for some of Cosmo’s acrobatics, this game would have been over long before it was.

So the game was pretty weird, but in actual fact, the whole Rock experience was a little different too. Two for the Show were not there (sorry, have to dry my tears before continuing… (snif) OK, I’m better now), and for the first time ever, none of the players (save Whipper) had nicknames. The attendance was only about 11,000 – I was surprised at how low that was. I was expecting 14-15,000 or so. They did have the same “hostess” as last year – the pretty girl who gives stuff away, and she had a helper this year. I question the wisdom of asking fans trivia questions for prizes during play, which caused me to miss a goal, but then I suppose that’s my own fault for not watching the game. The fact that I let that draw my attention away from the game it itself a little weird, considering it was a really good, albeit weird, game.

Roberto Alomar and Richard Nixon

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On my way home from work today, I was listening to a Prime Time Sports podcast from the other day, the day after the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement. During the show, Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star made perhaps the dumbest comparison in the history of, well, anything. They were discussing the fact that some players are not voted in to the Hall for years and then are voted in, when nothing changed in the meantime to suddenly make them HoF-worthy. Griffin said:

Richard Nixon in 1960 was no different than the guy in ’68. He was not elected in ’60, he got to be President of the United States in 1968.

He’s comparison the election of a President with the selection of a player into the Hall of Fame. This is not just an apples-to-oranges comparison, this is apples to Volkswagens. And I don’t mean Beetles, because they’re sort of round like an apple, I’m talking about a Touareg or one of those big old bus things. And one that’s not red. Or green. Or yellow.

1971_VW_bus

  • I don’t know what the population of the US was in 1960 or 1968, but it was well over a hundred million, most of whom were eligible to vote. A large percentage of them are less than fully informed on the issues and where the candidates stand on things. There are about 500 professional baseball writers who can vote for the HoF, and they all follow baseball in great detail because it’s their job. You and I may not agree with them all of the time, but they are better informed on baseball than the majority of voters are on politics.
  • When you vote for the President, you choose exactly zero or one of the candidates. There are only a handful of candidates, and usually only two that have any real hope of winning a Presidential election. Not only will people vote for you if they want you to be President, but they may vote for you if they don’t want the other guy to be President. Perhaps people thought Kennedy was a better choice for President in 1960, but that Nixon was a better choice than Hubert Humphrey in 1968. The HoF voters can vote for any number of eligible candidates, so voting for one doesn’t automatically mean that you can’t vote for someone else. If you think Andre Dawson and Tim Raines are both worthy, you can vote for both of them. If you don’t think Dawson is worthy, you don’t vote for Raines to try to keep Dawson out.
  • You elect a President for what you think he is going to do. You elect a baseball player to the HoF for what he’s already done.
  • Does he really think that Richard Nixon was no different in 1968 than in 1960? He may not have served as a Senator or Congressman during that time, but things happened during his life that changed who he was. Plus the country changed, so even if he wasn’t right for the country in 1960, he may have been in 1968. None of that means anything when electing someone to the HoF. What Alomar did during his career will not change between now and a year from now.

I’m not sure what surprises me more – that a professional journalist would make such a meaningless comparison, or the fact that none of the three other professional journalists / broadcasters on the show called him on it.

Rock 2010 season opener

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Just watched the Toronto Rock – Boston Blazers game on TSN2. Dave Randorf and Brian Shanahan did the announcing, and did a fine job. Randorf isn’t that familiar with lacrosse or the NLL, but is doing a far better play-by-play job than many other lacrosse neophytes I’ve heard in the past. The video is very clear (apparently in HD, though I don’t have HD), and the whole thing is just very professional – much better than the Score did a few years ago. After a couple of years without it, it’s great to see Rock games on TV again. All the games are streamed live on the internet, but this is just orders of magnitude better.

One thing I hate about watching lacrosse on TV is that the announcers always feel like they have to explain all the rules – over and back, shot clock, crease violations, stuff like that, during every game. I understand that lacrosse is a niche sport and they’re trying to build interest among those watching who may be unfamiliar with it, but it’s still annoying to those of us who already know it. Another thing I hate is that lacrosse doesn’t get the high-paying advertisers, so we get lots of the short-infomercial type commercials – MicroForce, Slap Chop (we actually have one of these, with a different name, and it works really well), Palm Wallet… (Having said that, the second half of the game had less of these than the first half.) Of course, lacrosse is on TV rarely enough that I’m not going to complain about it. Uh, except now.

First Rock goal of the season: rookie Creighton Reid? Unassisted? After a bad play by Dan Dawson? What planet are we on again?

Rock rookie Garrett Billings scored four in the first half of his first ever NLL game and one more in the 4th. Hominuck, LeBlanc, Reid and Billings each scored in their first Rock game. Beautiful.

Remember when I said that the return of Colin Doyle might help Blaine Manning rebound from last year? Manning has a hat-trick in the first half and another goal in the 4th, while Doyle had a goal and seven assists.

Troy Cordingley said at half-time that they’re doing all the “little things” well, and one of the things he specifically mentioned is getting on and off the floor quickly. How did he manage to coach Josh Sanderson in Calgary last year? Sanderson is an outstanding player, but during his time in Toronto, he was always brutal for taking his time getting off the floor.

Other notes:

  • The edges of the carpet looks like they don’t fit near the edges. The time-delay video of the conversion from ice to lacrosse floor was very cool.
  • There were an awful lot of empty seats right behind the benches.
  • Boston should have won their challenge in the second quarter – the ball didn’t cross the line before the player stepped on the crease line, so the goal shouldn’t have counted.
  • Is Troy “potty mouth” Cordingley really a first-grade teacher? Wow.
  • A couple of times Boston players looked like they wanted to fight – kudos to the Toronto players for not responding.
  • Both Boston goalies are former (very capable) backups for Watson in Toronto. Watson outplayed them both, though Cosmo really pulled it together in the second half.
  • The NLL has a new stats provider this year, but they had problems in the second half of the game. Last year, Pointstreak was usually a couple of minutes behind the game, but right now, ten minutes after the game ended, the web site still says it’s 12-5 in the third, and has for half an hour or so.

Anyway, it was a great game, and it was surprising how different the Rock team looks compared to last year. I’m sure it’s not entirely because of Doyle’s return, but they seemed to be brimming with confidence, and playing smart. Looking forward to the home opener next Friday!

Oooooooh, Roberto!

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The baseball writers of America put their heads together recently and came up with this year’s list of inductees into baseball’s Hall of Fame. The HOF is a place that honours what should be “the best baseball players of all time”, but the players in the Hall are more accurately described as “the most popular baseball players among baseball writers”. For the most part, the lists are the same, but there are some players not in the Hall who should be, and some who are in but shouldn’t be. I wrote about the mystifying voting procedure last summer.

Anyway, the only player to get inducted this year is Andre Dawson, who I think is deserving. It took eight years for Dawson to get in, and when asked about that, he came up with this bit of brilliance: “If you’re a Hall of Famer you’re eventually going to get in“….mmmmmmkay. It’s actually the other way around, Andre – if you get in, then you’re a Hall of Famer. On the other hand, if you’re not a Hall of Famer and you get in, then you are a Hall of Famer. Reductio ad absurdum. QED.

Of course, it’s more interesting to talk about those who didn’t get in than those who did. Bert Blyleven missed again, this time only by five votes. I’m not sure about whether or not Blyleven deserves to be there. He was a very good pitcher, no question, but he only won 20 games once, and only made the All-Star team twice in a twenty-two year career. He also lost fifteen or more games seven times. Blyleven’s numbers remind me of Don Sutton – when Sutton was inducted into the HOF in 1998, many said that he didn’t deserve to be there. The argument was that Sutton was a very good pitcher for a very long time, but I don’t think that’s what the Hall of Fame is for. Sutton also won 20 games only once, and Blyleven looks the same – long career, good numbers with some great years, but never outstanding.

Roberto Alomar, on the other hand, was outstanding. He played in twelve consecutive All-Star games and won 10 Gold Glove awards. He only played in Toronto for five years (was it really only five?), but was one of the most talented players (arguably the most talented position player) ever to wear the uniform. He could hit, he took walks, didn’t strike out a lot, he could run, he could steal bases, and boy, could he play defense. Watching Roberto play second was just a joy – I remember going to games at Skydome with a bunch of friends and mimicking the Alberto shampoo commercials when he did something spectacular: “Oooooooh, Roberto!”. He only missed by eight votes – you might say he was within spitting distance of getting in (I’m afraid I can’t take credit for that one). I’d love to hear the voters who didn’t vote for him explain why not, but he’s pretty much a lock for next year.

As for the spitting incident itself, there are writers (Marty Noble is one such moron writer) who have admitted that they have not forgiven Alomar for that, although the umpire who was involved has. Look at the numbers people, look at the All-Star appearances, the Gold Gloves, how important he was to the teams he played for (if not for Roberto Alomar, the Jays would still be waiting for their first World Series), how he was the best second baseman in baseball for a decade or more, and how he lowered the ERAs of all kids of pitchers thanks to his defensive prowess. And after a sixteen year career of that calibre, you’re going to deny him Cooperstown because of a one-second loss of control? A loss of judgement? A brief, sort of periodic total breakdown of judgement? Some kind of judgement failure? Some kind of failure to, you know, have judgement? (Sorry, faded into a Tragically Hip thing there)

Other players who missed out: Barry Larkin, Lee Smith, Jack Morris, and Tim Raines. Larkin and Raines should definitely be there – I might even have put them in before Dawson. Smith isn’t a lock but I would support him, and Morris is in the same boat as Blyleven and Sutton – very good for a long time, but probably not HOF material. Having said that, I’d put Morris in before Blyleven or Sutton – and Sutton is already there. Oh, and Mark McGwire didn’t make it either, but he never will. Even without the whole steroid issue (which should be a non-issue since he took them before steroids were illegal in baseball), he just wasn’t a good enough all-around player to make the HOF. In case you’re curious, I think Bonds and Clemens should be in (they were both locks before they ever touched steroids), and McGwire, Sosa, and Rose should not.

In other baseball news, one of the best pitchers of the last twenty years retired on Wednesday. When Randy Johnson was on his game, he was right up there with Clemens and Maddux as the best in baseball. Nobody had a nastier stare, and the fact that he’s taller than half the NBA made him even more intimidating. Any season where a pitcher has 20 or more wins and 6 or fewer losses and had an ERA under 2.50 is accurately described as incredible – and Johnson had three such seasons. Ten All-Star games, five Cy Youngs, World Series co-MVP, even a no-hitter and a perfect game. And given the era in which he pitched and the fact that he was a power pitcher, it’s amazing that he was not even mentioned in the Mitchell Report, and I have never heard any suspicions of him using steroids. A guaranteed first-ballot Hall of Famer. Of course, I thought Roberto Alomar was too.

Meaningful statistic FAIL

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I looked up my 2009 running stats on the Nike+ website this morning and saw this:

RunningStatsFail

The comparison under the total is technically true, but is off by two orders of magnitude. Even if the Leaning Tower of Pisa was 6 kilometers high, this would still be true. It’s like saying “With $1 million, you could buy at least forty iPods!”