Well, that depends on your perspective. Terry Nacho, sister of the Nachoman, watched the entirety of both 6:00 A.M. Red Sox-A’s clashes. Of course, she’s a Sox fan, and, more to the point, on spring break. The Nachoman himself, a National League elitist, followed briefly online. I took a look at ESPN Gamecast around about 8:30, to see the Sox ahead 4-3. I noticed that Gamecast showed a field diagram that looked an awful lot like the Alameda County Colesium – apparently ESPN either (a) didn’t spend the money and time necessary to input a 31st field diagram into their computer, or possibly (b) didn’t think anyone but a complete baseball nerd like the Nachoman would notice.
Nevertheless, the season opened, but Tuesday was not opening day. Not even this coming Sunday, when the Braves head to Washington for the first domestic regular season game, is “opening day,” or even “opening night.” Opening day is 2:15 Monday, in Cincinnati, after the conclusion of the Findlay Market parade.[1]
Speaking of the Sunday night game
The Braves will send to the mound Tim Hudson, who has maintained a career 3.51 ERA through the heart of the steroid era. The Nationals[2] counter with Odalis Perez , the journeyman with his fourth major league team and a career ERA a full run higher than Mr. Hudson’s. Think about it… this is the best the Gnats can do on (what others call) OPENING DAY? I am too scared even to look up the rest of their rotation.
Speaking of Cincinnati
Joe Nacho[3] sent me the picture at the top of this column, along with a discussion of a gimmicky Reds promotion. A major car company perched a big ol’ truck deep in center field at the great American ballpark: hit the truck, win the truck. However, as reported by the blog “Red Reporter,” a representative from the company that tracks the length of home runs for MLB vouchsafes that the truck is located 502 feet from home plate… and 65 vertical feet above the field. Running the numbers through the computer, this person finds that a homer that his the truck would have to land at least 540 feet from home plate on level ground. This company has not ever measured a homer at more than 500 feet in the 5000+ games their system has been in operation. The truck, it seems, is safe.
Speaking of Joe Nacho…
It is a quirk of Nacho-y style that regular contributors have theme names bestowed upon them. In the interest of new reader support, I offer the following summary of such theme names.
The Nachoman, Greg Jacobs: Chief writer on this site, sometimes teaches AP physics, too.
Burrito Girl, Shari Jacobs: Nachoman’s wife and sidekick
Nachoboy, Milo Cebu Jacobs: 5-year-old son of the Nachoman. Also Nachoman’s St. Louis Cardinals correspondent, for what that’s worth.
The Ribbie Reporter, Jacob Geiger: Principal Kansas City correspondent, journalist at Washington & Lee University
El Molé, Peter Cashwell: Nachoman’s next door neighbor, resource for all things basketball, NFL, and North Carolina. Also writes a blog, available at http://www.petercashwell.com/journal/index.html
The Atlanta Cracker, Paul Vickers: Woodberry chemistry teacher, expert on everything related to Atlanta
The Burnt End Bomber, Steven Geiger: Major supporter of Woodberry, major expert on Kansas City sports
NachoGrandpa, Bart Jacobs: Nachoman’s Dad, whose retirement project is to read the entirety of espn.com on a daily basis
Joe and Terry Nacho, Jesse and Rebecca Cook-Dubin: the Nachoman’s sister and brother-in-law. Theirs is a mixed marriage – one is a Yankees fan, the other a Red Sox fan. Can you tell which is which?
Nachoman’s Rules of Sports Journalism
Well, I’ve got a whole lot of them, including “Don’t ever interview Joe Namath on the sideline” and “Vin Scully is a god.”
But today, I discuss a no-less-important rule, concerning:
People who should NEVER be quoted in sports headlines or stories:
* a player’s agent
* a politician (even if this politician played the sport under discussion)
* a high school player regarding his college plans
* a college player regarding his professional plans
* a college or high school coach regarding the future of one of his players
* a player regarding possible retirement (one actual retirement announcement per notable career is acceptable)
* a player’s mother or father – EVER.
* a player’s wife, husband, or child, UNLESS directly relevant to a game (i.e. regarding practice or strategic plans, game preparation, funny quotations, etc.)
* a coach below the high school varsity level
Please feel free to suggest more… in fact, making a good suggestion for this list might be a good way to earn a theme name.
The NachoGrandpa’s retirement plans
Since about 1982, the NachoGrandpa has driven back and forth across the entire Cincinnati metropolitan area every day, 5-6 days per week, in order to attend his job. He is now in his last month or so of work before retirement. What is he going to do with the 40 hours a week he doesn’t have to spend at work, not to mention the 10 hours per week that he no longer will be sitting in his car? Having heard of his current leisure pursuits, I would suggest that he might want to become the Nachoman’s sports research department.
In order to “keep his mind sharp” (his words), the NachoGrandpa created a spreadsheet about all the major league first basemen, including their teams, their stats[4], and an interesting fact or two as found on Wikipedia or through other means.[5]
The note on Paul Konerko, garnered from Wikipedia, was that Mr. Konerko ranked #1 catcher in the nation during his senior year in high school. My thought is, by whom? High school "rankings" are notorious for their ridiculousness and vapidity. There are probably 30 different legitimate scouting services, plus a whole bunch of agent-fueled "rankings" that puff up 18 year olds' egos so that they, or mom and dad, will fork over cash. Beyond issues of unscrupuleity, even reputable and diligent ranking services have no chance of getting this right. Consider how many high school catchers there are. What service could possibly have seen a representative sample of every one of them so as to make an informed decision?
I find it hilarious that the American public continues to believe in and quote high school recruiting rankings, but consider the BCS to be so flawed it's unrepairable. Kind of like how people will swear to the existence of space aliens based on the testimony of some bloke in the pub, but don't believe the Mitchell report.
Boy, basketball can be unexciting in the end game
The end of the Xavier-Purdue game took many moons. In the last minute or so, Xavier led by about six points the whole time. So, Purdue would foul. Then, the officials would go to the scorers table to spend five minutes making a 1.8-second correction to the clock while the teams yapped with their coaches. When they finally divined the correct time remaining, the officials would need another 20 seconds to get the teams out of their huddles and to the free throw line. A substitution would always follow the first free throw; a time out would always follow the second. Then, the same process would repeat on the other end of the court. The officials putzed at the scorers table three or four times in the last minute. The idiot color commentator praised the officials for “getting it right,” but my goodness, what about the flow of the game? How unfair is it to Xavier that their free throw shooter got iced without Purdue even having to call a timeout?
More gamesmanship, but this time blame the scorers, not the officials
After yet another time out, Purdue fouled before the ball had even been inbounded. The Xavier shooter made the first free throw, and the ritual subs entered. But, once a player leaves the game, he cannot re-enter until time has gone off of the clock. The Pittsburgh coach had to have known this. Perhaps he made a mental mistake in the hectic end game. But, the effect of his attempt at illegal substitution was to (yet again) leave a Xavier player cooling his heels at the free throw line while the refs explained the rule (at length) to the coach. Why does this not result in a technical foul, or in a charged time out?
Kill the Wabbit…
The Xavier game’s ending was inflicted upon me by the Richmond CBS channel, not that I blame them – who knows whether Purdue could have come back for a miracle finish? It is the NCAA’s fault, not CBS’s fault, that the last minute of Xavier-Purdue pre-empted the entire first half of Stanford-Marquette.
Announcer Jay Bilas was thus charged with updating viewers on what had been an intense, testy first half. Stanford head coach Trent Johnson was ejected for walking onto the court and berating referee Curtis Shaw. CBS showed the highlight of the ejection.
One thing Mr. Bilas did NOT do was to criticize Mr. Johnson for his outburst. His two technical fouls cost his team four points! Announcers don’t hesitate to take players to task when, say, they get frustrated and elbow an opponent, or when they cost their team points by missing a fancy-pants dunk. Why should a coach get a free pass, when he could likely have cost his team the game with his temper? If I were the Stanford athletic director, I’d have Mr. Johnson sitting in his hotel room on Friday night during the Texas game.
In his only comments that could possibly be construed as criticism, Mr. Bilas several times wondered how Stanford would be able to overcome the loss of their head coach. He noted that assistant Doug Oliver was in charge, and Mr. Bilas several times implied with his skepticism that Mr. Oliver might not be as up to the task as the (presumably godlike) head coach. My goodness. Had Mr. Bilas checked even Wikipedia, he would have found out that Mr. Oliver had significant experience as a head coach, at Idaho State University. But it’s not like coaching basketball is rocket science. Even without head coaching experience at the college level, the primary assistant at any NCAA division I program had better be able to run the team during a game without any significant dropoff – if he couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t have the job as assistant to begin with. Yet Jay Bilas acted as if Mr. Johnson’s departure had put the team in the hands of Elmer Fudd.
The highlight of the NCAA basketball weekend
Mr. Bilas and CBS did catch Doug Oliver’s expression during Mr. Johnson’s tantrum. The head coach was out by the free throw line screaming at the officials. Mr. Oliver had started walking quickly and purposefully toward Mr. Johnson, presumably to restrain him. But, before Mr. Oliver could reach him, Mr. Johnson earned his second technical and his ejection.
CBS showed it again and again: Mr. Oliver stops walking, and buries his head in his hands. His embarrassment at his boss’s behavior could not have been more apparent. Great catch, CBS.
All Nachoman readers should enter, if only to show that they know more than the hosts of Baseball Tonight
The “Daily Fix” is a daily (duh) online sports column hosted by the Wall Street Journal. The authors summarize and provide links to some of the best sportswriting they’ve found on the web that day. Needless to say, the Daily Fix, along with the similar-in-purpose site TheBigLead, are invaluable to lazy bloggers like yours truly.
Take a look at the daily fix's baseball contest. Readers are tasked with choosing division and playoff winners, of course, but also with making more arcane predictions. For example, questions ask, “Which team will suffer the biggest decline, measured in decrease in total regular season victories?” and my favorite, “Rank these teams in order of regular season wins, most to fewest: Nationals, Pirates, Orioles, Devil Rays, Royals.”[6]
Nachoman readers should enter! If I ran some sort of enormous media conglomerate employing a staff of baseball “experts,” I would require all of them to enter this contest Then, the "expert" who performed worst would be replaced the next year. Don’t worry, though, I won’t forbid poor performers from reading this column.
While we’re at it, why doesn’t my senator do something about my $50 phone bill?
Peter King complained vehemently in his “Monday Morning Quarterback” column that it cost him $62 to fill up his 18-gallon gas tank. He went on to note that he could afford this, but many people can not. Mr. King wants to know why our elected officials are “doing nothing.”
What, Mr. King, do you want them to do? Are you an economist? Do you understand the relationship between supply and demand, and how government intrusion affects this balance? Or, do you just want your elected officials to say “presto, your gas will cost $1 per gallon”?
More to the point, what kind of behemouth vehicle are you driving on the streets of New Jersey that holds 18 gallons per fillup? If you’re that displeased with the price of gas, buy yourself a hybrid, or even a Dodge Neon.[7]
And if you’re truly concerned about those who can’t afford a $62 fillup, have you considered skipping Starbucks for a week, making your own coffee, and quietly handing the $50+ you save to the person who cleans your house, or to the attendant at the gas station, or to some local family with onerous medical expenses?
Lastly, I wonder why Mr. King feels it necessary to make a political statement in his NFL column. My own unsubstantiated speculation is that he has been reading too much of Gregg Easterbrook’s *Tuesday* Morning Quarterback. Mr. Easterbrook is, in fact, a recognized expert on politics and economics. As an editor for Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic, he is well versed on most of the side issues he brings into his football writing. I may not always agree with TMQ, but I know that his non-football notes are thoroughly researched and carefully thought out. Mr. King may be a solid writer and journalist, but his expertise doesn’t go much beyond football.[8] Stick to defensive tackles and double-espressos, Mr. King.
In NCAA tournament pool news…
In 2007, the Nachoman lost to his basketball-ignorant wife. This year, Burrito Girl hasn’t entered. Instead, my principal competition comes from Leora, a.k.a. the Jalepeñita, the two year old daughter of Joe and Terry Nacho. Mr. Nacho explains the near-futility of helping Leora make her picks:
Joe: "Do you like Duke, or Belmont?"
Leora: "No"
-- NM
Well, I’ve got a whole lot of them, including “Don’t ever interview Joe Namath on the sideline” and “Vin Scully is a god.”
But today, I discuss a no-less-important rule, concerning:
People who should NEVER be quoted in sports headlines or stories:
* a player’s agent
* a politician (even if this politician played the sport under discussion)
* a high school player regarding his college plans
* a college player regarding his professional plans
* a college or high school coach regarding the future of one of his players
* a player regarding possible retirement (one actual retirement announcement per notable career is acceptable)
* a player’s mother or father – EVER.
* a player’s wife, husband, or child, UNLESS directly relevant to a game (i.e. regarding practice or strategic plans, game preparation, funny quotations, etc.)
* a coach below the high school varsity level
Please feel free to suggest more… in fact, making a good suggestion for this list might be a good way to earn a theme name.
The NachoGrandpa’s retirement plans
Since about 1982, the NachoGrandpa has driven back and forth across the entire Cincinnati metropolitan area every day, 5-6 days per week, in order to attend his job. He is now in his last month or so of work before retirement. What is he going to do with the 40 hours a week he doesn’t have to spend at work, not to mention the 10 hours per week that he no longer will be sitting in his car? Having heard of his current leisure pursuits, I would suggest that he might want to become the Nachoman’s sports research department.
In order to “keep his mind sharp” (his words), the NachoGrandpa created a spreadsheet about all the major league first basemen, including their teams, their stats[4], and an interesting fact or two as found on Wikipedia or through other means.[5]
The note on Paul Konerko, garnered from Wikipedia, was that Mr. Konerko ranked #1 catcher in the nation during his senior year in high school. My thought is, by whom? High school "rankings" are notorious for their ridiculousness and vapidity. There are probably 30 different legitimate scouting services, plus a whole bunch of agent-fueled "rankings" that puff up 18 year olds' egos so that they, or mom and dad, will fork over cash. Beyond issues of unscrupuleity, even reputable and diligent ranking services have no chance of getting this right. Consider how many high school catchers there are. What service could possibly have seen a representative sample of every one of them so as to make an informed decision?
I find it hilarious that the American public continues to believe in and quote high school recruiting rankings, but consider the BCS to be so flawed it's unrepairable. Kind of like how people will swear to the existence of space aliens based on the testimony of some bloke in the pub, but don't believe the Mitchell report.
Boy, basketball can be unexciting in the end game
The end of the Xavier-Purdue game took many moons. In the last minute or so, Xavier led by about six points the whole time. So, Purdue would foul. Then, the officials would go to the scorers table to spend five minutes making a 1.8-second correction to the clock while the teams yapped with their coaches. When they finally divined the correct time remaining, the officials would need another 20 seconds to get the teams out of their huddles and to the free throw line. A substitution would always follow the first free throw; a time out would always follow the second. Then, the same process would repeat on the other end of the court. The officials putzed at the scorers table three or four times in the last minute. The idiot color commentator praised the officials for “getting it right,” but my goodness, what about the flow of the game? How unfair is it to Xavier that their free throw shooter got iced without Purdue even having to call a timeout?
More gamesmanship, but this time blame the scorers, not the officials
After yet another time out, Purdue fouled before the ball had even been inbounded. The Xavier shooter made the first free throw, and the ritual subs entered. But, once a player leaves the game, he cannot re-enter until time has gone off of the clock. The Pittsburgh coach had to have known this. Perhaps he made a mental mistake in the hectic end game. But, the effect of his attempt at illegal substitution was to (yet again) leave a Xavier player cooling his heels at the free throw line while the refs explained the rule (at length) to the coach. Why does this not result in a technical foul, or in a charged time out?
Kill the Wabbit…
The Xavier game’s ending was inflicted upon me by the Richmond CBS channel, not that I blame them – who knows whether Purdue could have come back for a miracle finish? It is the NCAA’s fault, not CBS’s fault, that the last minute of Xavier-Purdue pre-empted the entire first half of Stanford-Marquette.
Announcer Jay Bilas was thus charged with updating viewers on what had been an intense, testy first half. Stanford head coach Trent Johnson was ejected for walking onto the court and berating referee Curtis Shaw. CBS showed the highlight of the ejection.
One thing Mr. Bilas did NOT do was to criticize Mr. Johnson for his outburst. His two technical fouls cost his team four points! Announcers don’t hesitate to take players to task when, say, they get frustrated and elbow an opponent, or when they cost their team points by missing a fancy-pants dunk. Why should a coach get a free pass, when he could likely have cost his team the game with his temper? If I were the Stanford athletic director, I’d have Mr. Johnson sitting in his hotel room on Friday night during the Texas game.
In his only comments that could possibly be construed as criticism, Mr. Bilas several times wondered how Stanford would be able to overcome the loss of their head coach. He noted that assistant Doug Oliver was in charge, and Mr. Bilas several times implied with his skepticism that Mr. Oliver might not be as up to the task as the (presumably godlike) head coach. My goodness. Had Mr. Bilas checked even Wikipedia, he would have found out that Mr. Oliver had significant experience as a head coach, at Idaho State University. But it’s not like coaching basketball is rocket science. Even without head coaching experience at the college level, the primary assistant at any NCAA division I program had better be able to run the team during a game without any significant dropoff – if he couldn’t do that, he wouldn’t have the job as assistant to begin with. Yet Jay Bilas acted as if Mr. Johnson’s departure had put the team in the hands of Elmer Fudd.
The highlight of the NCAA basketball weekend
Mr. Bilas and CBS did catch Doug Oliver’s expression during Mr. Johnson’s tantrum. The head coach was out by the free throw line screaming at the officials. Mr. Oliver had started walking quickly and purposefully toward Mr. Johnson, presumably to restrain him. But, before Mr. Oliver could reach him, Mr. Johnson earned his second technical and his ejection.
CBS showed it again and again: Mr. Oliver stops walking, and buries his head in his hands. His embarrassment at his boss’s behavior could not have been more apparent. Great catch, CBS.
All Nachoman readers should enter, if only to show that they know more than the hosts of Baseball Tonight
The “Daily Fix” is a daily (duh) online sports column hosted by the Wall Street Journal. The authors summarize and provide links to some of the best sportswriting they’ve found on the web that day. Needless to say, the Daily Fix, along with the similar-in-purpose site TheBigLead, are invaluable to lazy bloggers like yours truly.
Take a look at the daily fix's baseball contest. Readers are tasked with choosing division and playoff winners, of course, but also with making more arcane predictions. For example, questions ask, “Which team will suffer the biggest decline, measured in decrease in total regular season victories?” and my favorite, “Rank these teams in order of regular season wins, most to fewest: Nationals, Pirates, Orioles, Devil Rays, Royals.”[6]
Nachoman readers should enter! If I ran some sort of enormous media conglomerate employing a staff of baseball “experts,” I would require all of them to enter this contest Then, the "expert" who performed worst would be replaced the next year. Don’t worry, though, I won’t forbid poor performers from reading this column.
While we’re at it, why doesn’t my senator do something about my $50 phone bill?
Peter King complained vehemently in his “Monday Morning Quarterback” column that it cost him $62 to fill up his 18-gallon gas tank. He went on to note that he could afford this, but many people can not. Mr. King wants to know why our elected officials are “doing nothing.”
What, Mr. King, do you want them to do? Are you an economist? Do you understand the relationship between supply and demand, and how government intrusion affects this balance? Or, do you just want your elected officials to say “presto, your gas will cost $1 per gallon”?
More to the point, what kind of behemouth vehicle are you driving on the streets of New Jersey that holds 18 gallons per fillup? If you’re that displeased with the price of gas, buy yourself a hybrid, or even a Dodge Neon.[7]
And if you’re truly concerned about those who can’t afford a $62 fillup, have you considered skipping Starbucks for a week, making your own coffee, and quietly handing the $50+ you save to the person who cleans your house, or to the attendant at the gas station, or to some local family with onerous medical expenses?
Lastly, I wonder why Mr. King feels it necessary to make a political statement in his NFL column. My own unsubstantiated speculation is that he has been reading too much of Gregg Easterbrook’s *Tuesday* Morning Quarterback. Mr. Easterbrook is, in fact, a recognized expert on politics and economics. As an editor for Atlantic Monthly and The New Republic, he is well versed on most of the side issues he brings into his football writing. I may not always agree with TMQ, but I know that his non-football notes are thoroughly researched and carefully thought out. Mr. King may be a solid writer and journalist, but his expertise doesn’t go much beyond football.[8] Stick to defensive tackles and double-espressos, Mr. King.
In NCAA tournament pool news…
In 2007, the Nachoman lost to his basketball-ignorant wife. This year, Burrito Girl hasn’t entered. Instead, my principal competition comes from Leora, a.k.a. the Jalepeñita, the two year old daughter of Joe and Terry Nacho. Mr. Nacho explains the near-futility of helping Leora make her picks:
Joe: "Do you like Duke, or Belmont?"
Leora: "No"
-- NM
[1] Don’t bother trying to argue with him on this, says Burrito Girl. It’s just not worth it.
[2] Wouldn’t it have been so much more incredibly awesome if the Washington team had been named the “Grays”, after the Negro League team that played many of its games in the DC area? But no, some corporate hack or other had to give them the most bland name in the universe. I shouldn’t worry too much, ‘cause even a pithy name wouldn’t solve their pitching woes.
[3] The Nachoman’s Yankees fan brother in law, whose name was originally an homage to Joe Torre, but still fits just fine, thank you.
[4] The NachoGrandpa included batting average. I, as a blogger and statistician, proposed that he instead use OPS. Bill Plashke will crucify me for my nerdliness in his column next week.
[5] His note on Kevin Youkilis mentions that Mr. Youkilis’s father attends the same Cincinnati synagogue as the NachoGrandpa, who’s rather proud of this connection. My own reaction is that it’s pretty darn cool, but such coolness is cancelled because Nachgrandpa also once belonged to the same synagogue as former Reds owner and giant weasel Carl Lindner.
[6] The “Ranking Task” is a staple of physics education. I’m particularly fond of applying quality physics teaching methods to sports.
[7] Motto: This car is totally uncool, but it gets 36 miles to the gallon.
[8] With the possible exception of gourmet coffee
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