Chelsea's Narrow Escape v the Canaries--Not Much from Torres, Too Little Caution from Lambert

When I wrote this about Fernando Torres’ industrious performance against Stoke City, I carved out the possibility that his form on that day could be a kind of dead cat bounce for a terminally declining player.  His play in the following two matches (v West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City) suggests that might be the case.  Distressingly, it seems Torres might be turtling back into the shell he occupied for large stretches of last season.  As the chalkboards below indicate, Torres’ passes received have dramatically fallen off since he had 51 against Stoke on the opening weekend.  And while he had 9 take-ons against Stoke and 10 versus WBA, he had a measly 2 (both lost) last BPL weekend.  And it’s not just the stats that tell the story here, as anyone who’s watched Torres play for Chelsea will attest.  Particularly, there was a moment in the 21^st minute of the Norwich City match, when, having been played in by a nice slide-rule pass from Florent Malouda, Torres decided to cut back at the edge of the box and try to find Drogba with a pass rather than try to beat Ritche De Laet for pace.  Though he nearly created a chance, this, for me, was a telling moment.  Where, exactly, is the player who used to smoke Nemanja Vidic (never mind perennial United loanee De Laet) and score goals for fun against the Red Devils?  Or how about the guy  whose blazing speed helped him score the winner in the final of the 2008 European Championships?  Sadly, I think the answer is becoming clear.  That player, like those £50M, may be gone forever.

Paul Lambert was apparently pretty frosted at what he deemed to be the excessive exuberance displayed by some Chelsea staff after Ramirez won a penalty that ultimately lead to Frank Lampard’s match-winning goal.  Really, the nerve of these continentals and their emotions.  A look at how Norwich was positioned after equalizing, though, suggests Lambert should mostly be angry with himself.  As the Chalkboard below indicates, Norwich maintained a high and narrow defensive line in the period after Holt evened the score.  This unbalanced 1-8-1 seems like a particularly odd tactic for a recently promoted club who was well-positioned to leave Stamford Bridge with a point.  What is more, it allowed Chelsea to attack from the wings and beat them on the counterattack, which they did in the build-up to Ramirez’s penalty-winning run into the box.  Rather than play for the point, Lambert seemed to want to kick-on and win the match.  It’s admirable when smaller clubs don’t park the bus, but sometimes discretion is the better part of, well, you know.  Lambert got greedy and got burned.

Will George Lucas Ever Stop Effing Up Star Wars? Noooooo.

George Lucas just cannot help himself. We’ve had Jar-Jar, Greedo shooting first, David Beckham in the cantina and Hayden Christensen as an apparition. Now, there’s this. Just when it seemed like the original trilogy was safe from further money-grubbing meddling, George The Tinkerer delivers what amounts to a donkey punch to the head of Star Wars' Gen X fandom. Hey, we need a tweak to boost those Blu-ray sales, people. The Skywalker Fire Brigade doesn’t pay for itself, after all. 


This latest desecration further underscores a theory I’ve been had for a while, which is that Lucas has, for whatever reason, become so alienated from the original trilogy that he’s lost any and all understanding of what made it so popular and endearing in the first place. He’s basically forgotten what made Star Wars cool. It’s almost gotten to the point where you have to wonder whether he ever really understood it to begin with. His body of work seems to suggest that Boba Fett is the exception and Ewoks hang-gliding the rule. Still, if Lucas got incredibly lucky in stumbling upon sci-fi gold, could he at least have the decency to just let it be so future generations can perhaps enjoy the same myth? Doesn’t he find it odd that J.R.R. Tolkien never revisited The Return of the King to, say, delete the Scouring of the Shire chapter? Or that the ever-shameless Orson Wells never fleshed out that opening scene of Citizen Kane. That’s not to equate Star Wars with LOTR or Kane, but you get the point. Real artists don’t continuously muck around with their signature creations. And, maybe, that’s the point—Lucas was never really an artist, just a nerd who got lucky. 


As long as completionists and fan boys keep paying for this shlock, he’ll keep churning it out. The only thing that can stop him are Star Wars fans who refuse to buy (and become accessories to) these bastardized versions.

Oh, you thought this was the nadir?
No, it actually gets worse.

Elizabeth Warren and the CILF Test

Last week, Elizabeth Warren launched a Senate exploratory committee to begin raising money for a possible 2012 attempt to wrest Ted Kennedy's old seat from Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown. Right now, I don't like her chances. And here's why--Elizabeth Warren looks like this.

In other words, Elizabeth Warren, despite all her impressive academic and professional qualifications, fails the Candidate I'd Like to F*ck (CILF) Test. Now, I don't mean that literally, and I'm not inferring that guys who voted for, say, Mitt Romney, in the last primary did so because they wanted to have sex with him (though that's an interesting theory).  No, I'm really using the CILF Test as a benchmark to evaluate if a candidate projects the sleek, prepossessing image that America expects from its aspiring politicians.

The CILF Test doesn't apply to old warhorses like John McCain or Rosa DeLauro. But, if you're an aspiring politician, it helps to look more like Scott Brown than Meg Whitman. Similarly, while veteran news anchors can look like old, leathery handbags, rookie newsreaders should appear as if they've just retired from the pageant circuit. Though none of this terribly superficial stuff should matter, it, of course, does. Just as the professorial Warren was forming her exploratory committee, Slate.com released a piece on what Google search terms were associated with various Republican presidential candidates. For Michele Bachman, who has more or less officially been anointed as "photogenic" by the popular press, "hot" and "bikini" were especially popular; while, for Romney, "hair" was unsurprisingly near the top of the list. When I Googled "Elizabeth Warren," terms like "harvard" and "books" popped up. Yawn. At the risk of sounding unkind, another term that comes to mind when I see photos of Warren is "great personality." If she hits the campaign trail, I hope she has one. She's going to need more than just her good looks to win back Ted's seat.

Is this a candidate you'd like to . . . well, you know?
That's what I thought.

The Return of El Niño? Chelsea Hopes So.

Over the span of a few years, Fernando Torres went from sporting a coiffure vaguely reminiscent of Paris Hilton to being almost as useless as Paris Hilton out on the pitch. After struggling to find his form during the first half of last Barclays Premier League campaign, Torres joined Chelsea in a blockbuster transfer in January and basically disappeared. When spotted, he was seen skulking at the fringes of matches, looking generally out-of-sorts and ineffective. So, shortly after news of a potential breakthrough in the D.B. Cooper case emerged, it seemed appropriate that there was a Fernando Torres sighting during the Blues match against Stoke City last Sunday. Though he failed to score, Torres created a chance, attempted four shots and consistently challenged the Potters back four. Perhaps more importantly, though, he just looked livelier. To wit, Torres received 51 passes before being subbed off in the 89th minute last Sunday. During the last two matches of the '10/'11 campaign, Torres had a total of only 54 passes received, with a listless performance against Newcastle standing out as particularly fallow. If this improved work rate is a sign of things to come--and not just a false dawn--Chelsea will add to their trophy cabinet this year.

Michael Carrick--Good . . . But Not Good Enough for United's European Ambitions

As chuffed as Manchester United supporters must have been to watch their club rally from two goals back to pip Manchester City 3-2 in the Community Shield, Sunday's performance still left at least one important question unanswered. How will United overhaul the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid in Europe with Michael Carrick in the center of the pitch. Now, to be fair to Carrick, he's a quality player who endures a hellacious amount of stick from the chattering classes on the Internet and in the Twittersphere. Just because some of this criticism is unfair, though, doesn't mean all of it is undeserved. After all, it was Carrick who gifted possession to Yaya Toure before he rifled home the winner in the FA Cup semifinal. And it was Carrick who looked simply overmatched during the Champions League final, attempting a meager 38 passes and connecting on only about 83 percent of them before being mercifully substituted in the 76th minute. On Sunday, it was Carrick's long, diagonal pass that Nigel de Jong intercepted to start the build-up to City's second goal. The fault for that goal should not pinned exclusively on Carrick, but one cannot envision Paul Scholes conceding possession so cheaply under similar circumstances. At least towards the end of his United career, the intensely private Scholes jealously guarded the ball as if it were imprinted with his ATM PIN; Carrick, if he's to inherit Scholes mantle as United's deep-lying pass master, must do the same. Carrick's apologists often note that he has an impressive collection of Iberian admirers, as both Barca's Xavi Hernandez and Real's Xabi Alonso, have lavished the midfielder with praise. What Spain's X-Men have politely omitted from their respective paeans is that Carrick wouldn't crack the starting XI at either Barca or Real. Carrick is not world class, and, with him in the center of the park, neither is United.  

The Loewdown on US Soccer's Superstar Gaffer

Finally, in Jürgen Klinsmann, the United States Men's National Team has its superstar.  Granted, he'll be on the touchline instead of the pitch, but, right now, Sunil Gulati, the president of the United States Soccer Federation, will gladly take it.  In his pomp, Klinsmann was a world-class goal-getter who plied his trade around Europe and netted 47 international goals in German colors.  His credentials as a player are impeccable.  His credentials as a manager, on the other hand, are less clear.

Klinsmann took his first managerial post in 2004, helming an unfancied German Man's National Team that seemed in danger of embarrassing itself as host of the upcoming World Cup.  Combining the ruthlessness he exhibited as a striker (in demoting the imperious Bayern goal keeper Oliver Kahn in favor the eccentric Jens Lehmann) with some New Age coaching methods (like the extensive use of a sports psychologist) that seemed to coax match-winning performances from supposed has-beens like Lukas Podolski, Klinsmann took Die Mannschaft on a fairytale run to the quarterfinals. Along the way, he also managed to restore the reputation of football in Deutschland and awaken a latent and relatively benign strain of German nationalism. He and his nattily clad assistant, Joachim Loew, were national heroes. Not a bad start, really.

Perhaps sensing that the sequel couldn't possibly live up to expectations, Klinsmann opted not to renew his contract with Germany shortly after the World Cup. Loew, who many theorized was the power behind Klinsmann's throne, has seamlessly assumed command and led Germany, now ranked third in FIFA's world rankings, to impressive performances at the 2008 European Championships and 2010 World Cup. Klinsmann, on the other hand, has struggled to build upon his sensational early success. Two years after leaving Germany, Klinsmann was handed the keys to the Bundesliga's most iconic, finely tuned machine--Bayern Munich--but Klinsmann's Left Coast Zen never quite jibed with the prestigious Bavarian club's more buttoned-down culture. With five matches remaining and Bayern 3 points off the top of the table, Klinsmann resigned. He hasn't worked as a manager since. 

Since their amicable separation in 2006, Loew has been the Paul Simon to Klinsmann's Art Garfunkel. With the USMNT listing towards regression after a disappointing Gold Cup, US soccer is hoping he can rediscover his mojo. Troubled water lies ahead. 

Farewell to "The Legend" . . . Not So Much--The End of the Roy Williams Era In Dallas

In 2009, during the Dallas Cowboys 17-7 loss to the Green Bay Packers, Tony Romo overthrew a deep out to Roy Williams along the sideline.  He didn’t overthrow it by much, as I’m pretty sure it grazed off Williams’ outstretched hands before landing harmlessly out of bounds.  For me, what happened next defined Roy William’s tenure in Big D.  He looked back at Romo, and holding his hands in the pass-catching triangle shape, moved them down over his chest.  It’s was almost as if he was saying, “Hey, I know I’m 6’-3’’ and have hands the size of stop signs, but, if you want me to catch a pass, you really need to put it right here between the numbers.  Otherwise, I’m afraid I cannot help you.”  That’s who Roy Williams is.  And that’s why the Cowboys are glad to be shot of him.

Of course, what makes Williams’ unremarkable 35 games with the Cowboys—94 catches/1,324 yards/13 TDs or numbers elite NFL WRs put up in a single season—so offensive is the head-slappingly ridiculous trade they executed to acquire him.  As the 2008 trade deadline approached, the Cowboys sent the Detroit Lions their first-, third- and six-rounds picks in the 2009 draft and their 2010 seventh-round pick in exchange for a malcontent who was dubbed “The Legend” at  Permian High School of Friday Night Lights fame.  As ludicrous as that deal sounds, it’s actually much worse.  Because Williams was moping through last year of his contract, the Cowboys actually traded all those picks for a 10-game rental of Williams.  So, to compound their original error, the Cowboys inked Williams to a five-year $45M dollar deal with $20M guaranteed.  Sure, if Dallas waited until he was a free agent, they could have snapped up the University of Texas alum without having to sacrifice a raft of picks, but, according to J.R. Ewing Jerry Jones, they needed him for the 2008 season, son.  True to form, Williams repaid the ‘Boys by becoming invisible for rest of year (10/198/1).  In 2009, he was marginally better, but still only adequate, at best.  For example, in that season, Football Outsiders ranked him as the 59th best WR in the league, who was good for only about 40 yards over a replacement level player.  After another year of underachievement in 2010, the Cowboys had finally had enough.  As forgettable as Williams’ time with the Cowboys was, the lessons of his ill-advised acquisition deserved to be remembered.  Eventually, even J.R. learned from his mistakes, so let’s hope Williams’ release is a sign that Jerry Jones is capable of doing the same.

Copa America Time Machine

The Copa America wrapped up this weekend with a historic Uruguay victory. In some ways, though, it never really kicked off. Argentina and Brazil, the glamour sides and heavy favorites, sputtered to early exits. Lionel Messi failed to score for his country (again). And Paraguay managed to make the finals without actually winning a match (they drew all their group games and advanced on penalty kicks). Still, in spite of this, I enjoyed the tournament. The reason I kept tuning in to Univision's coverage, though, had little to do with the product on the pitch. No, my attraction to this year's Copa America was purely nostalgic. Just watching a match made me feel like I was 14-years-old again.

During the summer of 1990, my best friend/neighbor and I were looking forward to our freshman year of high school in southern Connecticut. We were also desperately looking for something to do. One day, after catching a Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right, we turned on Univision's coverage of the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Soon after, we were hooked.  Thanks to Sports Illustrated, we knew a couple of household names, but our ignorance didn't seem to matter. It was just so intoxicatingly different--the raucous atmosphere, the exotic, mononymous names and the language and style of the presentation. Not only did it give us the shock of the new, but also provided the thrill of the forbidden. Two kids who had yet to take a Spanish class had no business watching Univision, but it put us ahead of the curve. We felt like the only people that summer running around yelling "GOOOOOOL!!!!!"  Four years later, everyone and their brother would be aping Andres Cantor's famous call. In many ways, it was our introduction to the world: an epiphany that there were fascinating, foreign cultures about which we knew very little.  I'm not sure if I'll ever experience a feeling quite like that again.

We're no longer neighbors, but a little over two decades later, my friend was texting me throughout the Copa. Sure, he said, it's on YouTube, but he's watching Univision. I think I know why.

The Tao of Penalty Kicks--PKs Just Are . . . So Deal With It

Thanks to the Twitterverse, public bellyaching about the injustice of using penalty kicks to decide a tournament began only minutes after the United States Women's National Team lost the Women's World Cup to Japan.  By the end of today, I expect all the usual tropes to be trotted out, such as "It's like using a home run derby to decide a baseball game!" or "Having a free-throw contest determine the NCAA Finals!"  Actually, it's not like these things at all.  The most appropriate analogy to major American sports is the use of penalty shots as a tie-breaker for hockey games, which, of course, the NHL now does throughout the regular season.  Granted, during the NHL playoffs, this tie-breaker is scrapped because a series format is used, unlike the one-off, knock-out tournament approach used in World Cups.  Now, we can debate the merits of overtime or a three-match series approach versus penalty kicks ad infinitum, but, the truth is, that would be a colossal waste of time.  Penalty kicks are not going anywhere.  As any footy fan vaguely familiar with the opaque and corrupt machinations of soccer's governing body, FIFA, could tell you, reform is not something that concerns the bureaucratic Illuminati of international soccer.  So, we can bemoan the justness of penalty kicks, but that would be about as productive as grousing about the shape of the letter "F."  Penalty kicks just are.  They are not fair.  But, ultimately, they are what you make them--an unforgettably dramatic way to win (see Brandi Chastain in 1999) or a cruel, gut-wrenching way to lose. 

Derek Jeter in a Post-DJ3K World--What's Next?

Last weekend, Derek Jeter reached and eclipsed the 3,000 hit plateau with inimitable, Jeterian flair. But now that the warm glow of the DJ3K honeymoon has receded, the Yankees, as a franchise, could be excused for asking the Captain "What's next?" After all, they owe him $40 million more over the next two-and-a-half seasons. During the first week of Jeter's DL stint, Mark Feinsand of the Daily News, who appears on the "Daily News Fifth" segment of the Yankees' WCBS radio broadcast, noted that if you erase the names and look at the stats, batting Brett Gardner leadoff is a no-brainer.  That's not particularly insightful, mind you, but that kind of clear-headed, independent thought qualifies as revolutionary during a broadcast that features Yankee mouthpieces Suzyn Waldman and John Sterling.  Basically, if you bump The Captain off of leadoff, the only logical place to put him is at or near the bottom of the order.  And you can't do that to The Captain.  The horse (in the form of A-Rod's criminally insane contract) is already out of the barn, but the strained tone of Jeter's last contract negotiation suggests the Yankees have realized that the lionization of certain individuals isn't necessarily good for business, especially when you have one of the strongest brands in international sports history. What Jeter does next--in terms of accepting a move off of SS or a move down the order--will challenge the Yankees' powers of image management. In English soccer, there's a cliche that "No player is bigger than the club."  The Yankees may be belatedly coming around to that school of thought.

Note Well is Changing--The Anti-Grantland Approach

I wanted to quickly touch on a stylistic change I'm making to the site. Going forward, I intend to keep the length of all my posts to around 250 words. I realize that this appears to be a shameless nod to the Twitterification of all things, and I admit cannot categorically deny that charge. However, the primary reason for this change is much more banal--I have a day job. By keeping my posts succinct, I hope to post more frequently and explore a wider range of topics. Plus, it's probably best to leave the long-form journalism and phone-hacking to the professionals. Hopefully, readers will be able to find time to check out some posts that will be short but not often sweet. Ok, I have to go; I don't want to exceed my word limit.

Boondoggle--Boone Logan May Be the Key to the Yankees' Bullpen . . . and Season

Despite achieving considerable success at the helm of the Florida Marlins and New York Yankees, Joe Girardi doesn't always look the part of a respected baseball manager. His appearance lacks a Piniellaesque gravitas.  Maybe it's his diminutive stature, somewhat baggy uniform or mouth full of braces. On Tuesday night, though, when Joe marched out of the dugout to make a pitching change in the ninth inning of the Yankees' win over the Cincinnati Reds, I wouldn't have crossed his path if you paid me. It wasn't so much that Girardi looked angry, he looked downright murderous. Not that I blamed him, mind you. Watching Boone Logan pitch can do that to a man.


Logan, who had just come on in relief of the similarly unreliable Luis Ayala, inherited a runner on first and was tasked with retiring reigning NL MVP Joey Votto. If successful, he probably would have been allowed to mop up the final outs to give Mariano Rivera the night off. Alas, it wasn't to be. Logan promptly plunked Votto with his first pitch and out stormed Girardi in a hot funk.

A Yankee fan, upon realizing that Boone Logan
may have to face David Ortiz in the ALCS. 

BOONE OR BUST?

Here's the problem with Boone Logan--he's a LOOGY (Lefty One Out GuY) who's not very good at getting left-handed batters out. Over the course of six MLB seasons, lefties have a .252 batting average against him, and while that's not terrible, it's not really the kind of dominance contending teams are looking for out of a left-handed specialist. And this year, as Logan has relied on a low-90s fastball and slider, lefties are hitting him at a .286 clip.  It's a small sample size, of course, but it's unimpressive and indicative of his mediocrity. Ultimately, it's his career numbers, compiled over more than 800 batters faced, that put to rest the argument that the Yankees have to wait until Logan "comes around." At this point in his career, what you see is what you get--a guy with WHIP nearing 1.6 who doesn't miss enough bats (his K/BB ratio is only 1.77).


Now, here's the other problem with Boone Logan--he's the only LOOGY the Yankees have, and he's out of options, meaning he cannot be sent down to the minors until he clears waivers. Given the sad state of the LOOGY population throughout the league, if the Yankees let him go, he'll get snapped up by another, still more desperate team. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Logan was supposed to be a guy who kept his warm up jacket on and watched from the 'pen as Pedro Feliciano, fresh off a dominant 2010 campaign with the Mets, handled high-leverage LOOGY situations in the Bronx. Feliciano, though, turned out to be a carrier of the dreaded Mets injury bug and was diagnosed with a torn shoulder capsule that has kept him out since April; the date of his return is still uncertain. That means, for the time begin at least, Logan is the Yankees' man. That's not good. Over the past couple of days, you can sense the unease in Yankeeland as people begin to realize that the Yankees will eventually need a lefty to face guys like Adrian Gonzalez, David Ortiz or Carl Crawford in late inning situations in September and October. It's becoming clear that if that lefty is Boone Logan, this season could turn out to be a bust.

Let's Face It, Rioters Are Fans, Too

In the wake of the instantly infamous riots that gripped Vancouver after the Canucks' loss to the Boston Bruins in the NHL's Stanley Cup finals last week, I heard a couple of media personalities try to rationalize the debacle by claiming that  the perpetrators weren't "real" hockey fans or Canucks supporters. This tired excuse, which is faithfully trotted out in the U.S. whenever fan hijinks devolve into mob violence, begs an obvious question. Here, one has to ask who, exactly, were those troublemakers kitted out in bespoke Canucks' paraphernalia? Were they a particularly organized flash mob of anarchists? Probably not. In fact, a lot of them probably were passionate Canucks fans. They were too passionate, clearly, and quite stupid, as well, but fans, nonetheless. It's probably time for us, as a sporting culture, to put on our big boy pants and realize that.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Obviously, this isn't our first brush with fan violence. In an analogous incident from May 2008, hooligan supporters from Glasgow soccer club Rangers expressed their displeasure with their club's humbling loss to Zenit St. Petersburg in the UEFA Cup Final by cutting a swath of destruction through the host city of Manchester that was described as being as bad as anything the area had suffered "since the Blitz."  Sadly, tales of soccer hooliganism are legion, with Italy's Serie A providing many of the recent battlegrounds, but fan delinquency isn't cabined to European soccer. How about those lovably loyal Cleveland Browns fans who gave us a bottle tossing incident in 1991 that Nick Bakay dubbed "The Day It Rained Pilsner?" Or the night in 2004 when fans attempted a coup at the Palace at Auburn Hills during a NBA regular season game between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers? More recently, Major League Baseball was rocked by the savage beating of a San Francisco Giants fan outside of Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. For crissakes, this isn't even the first post-Game 7 Stanley Cup Finals riot in the city of Vancouver. The fact that lists like this are nowhere near exhaustive only speaks to my point.

And, yet, America's sports media continues its self-serving refusal to acknowledge that the whole premise of the bad-fans-aren't-real-fans argument is laughably flawed. I suppose it's bad business to tell your audience that they sometimes act like common criminals, but it's an insult to a viewer's intelligence to act like "real" sports fans are morally incapable of behaving badly.

Are these people you'd invite to your housewarming party?
No, but that doesn't mean they aren't sports fans.

FANCIER OR FANATIC?

There's some etymological uncertainty over whether the word "fan" was, when first applied to baseball fans during the 19th century, a shortened form of the word "fancier" or "fanatic." Usually, the majority of sports fans in this country (and probably the rest of the world) act more like fanciers than fanatics; however, when fanaticism takes primacy in sports, things can get ugly, just as they do when fanaticism dominates political or religious spheres.

Ultimately, people are capable of acts of malice and profound stupidity. "Real" sports fans are people. So, they, too, are capable of the kind of deviance that roiled Vancouver last week. Let's face it, good fans are capable of being bad people.

Denial in Yankeeland--The Red Sox Can (and Probably Will) Ruin Our Summah

As a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees, I have a some fond memories of the legendary 1998 team that won 125 games en route to World Series sweep of the sacrificial San Diego Padres. In particular, though, I vividly remember watching a May game against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. It was the second time the teams had met that season, and the day earlier, a Sox lineup of pseudo "stars" (Mo Vaugh) and bona fide scrubs (Darren Lewis, Troy O'Leary, Jon Valentin, Darren Bragg, Mike Benjamin and Lou Merloni) had, behind Tim Wakefield, somehow won the opening game of the series. The next day, normal service was restored, and as the Yankees were putting the sword to the Sox on their way to a 12-3 rout, one of their announces (Ken Singleton, maybe?) said, "This is just one team telling another, 'Hey we're better than you.'" While watching the Sox administer the second Bronx beat down of this season earlier this week, those words floated back to me in a kind of Proustian memory. Except this time, it was the Sox who were emphatically delivering that message.

You would think that even those Yanks fans who see the world though rose-tinted, pinstriped glasses issued by YES Network, the Bomber's in-house propaganda arm, couldn't deny that the Sox are a superior team. In fact, the question of whether the Sox are currently better than the Yankees is no longer a subjective one. Unfortunately, it is a fact that the answer is "Yes." These last few games served as a kind of mathematical proof. To argue to the contrary is to deny objective reality and betray a mind warped by homerism. It would be like asserting that John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman are a good radio broadcast team or that Tom Brady's haircut is actually cool. These kind of delusional statements are like dog whistles signaling your listeners that you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

And yet, if you choose to crawl down the rabbit hole of sports talk radio, you'll hear people like WFAN host Mike Francesa argue that the Yankees are as good as or better than the Sox. The current standings, this line of argument theorizes, are skewed by Boston's dominance of this year's head-to-head match-up. But doesn't that head-to-head dominance actually verify their superiority? Whatever. This kind of denial is made more irrational by the reality that it doesn't matter who is the best team in early June. Of course, Yankee fans shouldn't be too optimistic about the Yankees overhauling the Red Sox anytime soon, especially now that the bullpen is in shambles and Bartolo Colon just injured one of his ponderous legs.  That the health of Colon matters this much is, in and of itself, troubling, but without beefy Bartolo and his magic arm, we're left with the tragicomic prospect of watching A.J. Burnett pitch Game 2 of a post-season series. The Yanks will likely look to make a move before the deadline, but, then again, won't the Sox, as well? As much as I'd like to deny it, the truth is it could be a while before the Yankees can once again tell the Red Sox, "Hey, we're better than you."  

Diabolical--The Extreme Makeover of Arizona State's Uniforms Says a Lot About What's Wrong With College Sports

I have to admit that I've always had a soft spot for "Sparky," the pitchfork-wielding imp, who until last season, was emblazoned on the Arizona State University Sun Devil's football helmets. It wasn't because he was particularly demonic. On the contrary, Sparky looked pretty harmless; despite his weapon, he appeared to be wearing a red Hoodie Footie Snuggle Suit and bore a passing resemblance to Jon Lovitz's Mephistopheles from Saturday Night Live. But what he lacked in ferocity, he made up for in biography. Legend has it that, in the late 1940s, Bert Anthony, an ASU alum and former Disney employee, modeled Sparky's mischievous face after his former boss, Walt Disney. I'm not totally sold on that tale, but regardless of its veracity, it's still a great story. The possibility that a school's mascot may actually be a satanic caricature of one of America's most beloved entertainers is part of the romance that makes college sports special.

Apparently, Arizona State's not much for romance. Last week, the school effectively put a pitchfork in Sparky, opting for an Arena League-esque football uniform (and complete range) designed by repeat uniform desecrator Nike. Sparky has not been consigned to the underworld--he'll remain the mascot and will appear on one side of the back of the football helmet--but it's a pretty big demotion. And for what? ASU traded 65 years of homegrown history and a good urban legend for a trendy redesign (complete with obligatory, all-black alternate strip) authored by a company started by a famous alum (Phil Knight) of a conference rival (Oregon University). Talk about selling your soul to the devil.

In deference to tradition, most schools celebrate the uniqueness of their outdated or obscure nicknames and uniforms. That's why we still have Elis, Hoyas, Cornhuskers and Boilermakers. Thankfully, that's why we don't have any schools nicknamed the Mighty Ducks or Raptors. That same reverence of the past is also the reason why we have ancient uniform designs like those of Alabama, Michigan and Princeton. Lately, though, thanks to the remarkable turnaround enjoyed by Oregon University's football program, which roughly coincided with its adoption of gaudy, DayGlo unis, schools like Washington State and now ASU seem more willing to forsake history in an attempt to "shake things up" or inject a "new attitude" into a flailing program. Schools are obviously free to remake their image, but dodgy uniforms and esoteric nicknames are part of the charm of college athletics.

The more that kind of tradition is eroded, the further college sports creep towards professionalism, where, except for a handful of franchises (e.g., the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox) it's really just the product on the field that counts with most fans. The problem with that is, as the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Final suggested, the quality of college athletics, even at the highest level, isn't all that good. Different colored fields, ridiculously designed basketball courts and gimmicky uniforms are all masking an ever-widening gap in quality between the professional and collegiate athletics. When all that's left to college athletics is the product on the field, there won't be much of a reason to watch. Each time college athletics loses a Sparky, it takes one step closer to its own kind of purgatory.

  

The Torres Experiment is Failing at Chelsea

Regardless of what happens during Chelsea's remaining Premier League fixtures, the first chapter of Roman Abramovich's Fernando Torres Experiment has to go down as an epic failure. As someone who had been scrounging for the positives in Torres play with the Blues (such as his passing ability, his header v Manchester United in the first leg of the Champions League tie and his good work with Yossi Benayoun v Wigan), his wholly anonymous and inert display in the second leg v United on Monday finally deep-sixed to my fading optimism. For most disinterested observers, only one conclusion can be drawn from the first half of Tuesday's capitulation--Fernando Torres is not the same talismanic presence he was for Liverpool and Spain from 2007-2009. In fact, he looks a completely different and vastly inferior player.
A couple of chalkboards (courtesy of the fantastic Total Football iPhone app) underscore just how ineffectual El Niño was on Monday.

Though Torres was playing in his preferred position as a solo striker, it can reasonably be argued that Torres' dearth of passes received during his 45-minute shift was down to poor service and Chelsea's overall lack of creativity in the center of the park.  However, it's notable that Drogba dropped into deeper, more central positions to get on the end of almost twice as many passes. Most importantly, his deft chest control at the end of Essien's assist (in yellow) is exactly the kind of skill and composure in front of goal that Torres has failed to demonstrate. One gets the feeling that if Torres was in the exact same position, he would have miscontrolled the pass or fluffed the shot. He doesn't just seem out-of-form; he seems like the victim of a alien abduction. Gone is pacy, explosive and ruthless striker who once terrorized the likes of Nemanja Vidić. In that player's place, is a sluggish, tentative simulacrum.

The chalkboard on the left speaks to the Torre's crisis of confidence. His one attempt to actually run at an opponent was a tame, unsuccessful effort in his own half. He just never looked like troubling United's back four, while Drogba was far more aggressive with the ball at his feet.
An Uncertain Future
The danger of any transfer for or free agent acquisition of a struggling superstar in any sport is that the acquiring team is actually paying for the player whom they remember rather than the player who currently exists. Abramovich, envision as the oligarch from the DirecTV commercials who I now reflexively envision as the oligarch from the DirecTV commercials, clearly paid for a player who he fondly remembered skinning Premier League defenders to the tune of 56 goals from 2007-10, rather than the guy who looked indifferent and aimless at times for Liverpool this season. It's possible that Torres could recover his world class form, but it's possible that he might not. If he doesn't, Chelsea will need a manager with a personality big enough to finally abort the Torres Experiment.

A Look Back at the Meaning of UConn's Pyrrhic Victory

Now that about a week has passed since the UConn Huskies won The Worst NCAA Basketball Final Ever, I figure I have enough perspective to look back and try to address the question of whether someone who, like me, has been a fan of men's college basketball for almost three decades, should derive any joy from watching their alma mater win a game that basically bombed college basketball back to the Stone Age. Without hesitation, I have to say the answer is unequivocally "Yes." And the reasoning is simple. It's much better to win The Worst NCAA Basketball Final Ever than it is to lose The Worst NCAA Basketball Final Ever. Just ask Butler. 


Granted, that doesn't mean that I actually enjoyed watching the game. In fact, as someone who has long appreciated not just March Madness, but also the long slog of the regular season, Monday's re-enactment of Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball was a sad and shambolic reminder of just how far the state of men's college basketball has fallen since the introduction of the NBA's "one-and-done rule" in 2005. The merits of "one-and-done"--which states that high school players must be 19-years-old as of the end of the calendar year of the NBA Draft and one year removed from their high school graduation to be eligible for selection--have been debated ad infinitum, but the argument UConn and, especially, Butler made last Monday is almost irrefutable. During the telecast, NBC's usually anodyne Clark Kellogg noted repeatedly that the teams' performances were "inexplicable," but the elephant in the room was that there was, in fact, an obvious explanation for Monday's travesty--over the last couple of years, the quality of college basketball has generally been pretty poor, and it's getting progressively worse. That's why Butler, a team that won ugly throughout the whole tournament, got as far as they did. It's not that the Bulldogs didn't deserve to be there, they probably did (thanks to a truly farcical ending to the Pitt game). And therein lies the problem.


The Rise of the Mediocre Mid-Major


As Charles Barkley opined during Monday's post-game show, this won't be the last time we see schools of Butler's ilk in the Final Four. What he didn't add is that well-coached, veteran teams comprised of NBDL-level talent will soon be able to compete with the traditional powers from the "major" conferences that are still fielding a collection of highly-touted strangers who have been recruited for a one- or two-year layover in college ball. This paradigm shift greatly advantages the mid-majors who don't bother trolling for McDonald's All-Americans with the likes of John Calipari. Rather than take Calipari's day-trading approach of trying to annually restock a program with lottery picks, the mid-majors can take a more conservative, recruit-and-hold approach. The gamble small schools are willing to take is that four years down the road in March, no-names who've played 100 games together will be able to give blue-chippers that have only played 35 a run for their money.


If it Ain't Broke


The problem with this kind of parity is that it's fundamentally regressive. Mid-majors aren't ascending to the major's level of play; instead, the majors are backsliding to mediocrity. The tournament, as a contest, is more competitive, but the quality of the contest itself is suffering. Most people, though, don't really seem to care, as the tournament's record-breaking ratings suggest. Now that March Madness is a cultural meme that has introduced terms like "buzzer beater" and "bracket buster" into the national lexicon, its sheer drama will continue to generate impressive Nielsen ratings. That's why it seems unlikely that there's going to be a big push from the NCAA to undo the one-and-done rule. And I guess that's good news for UConn and Butler, because given the direction college basketball is heading in, this won't The Worst NCAA Basketball Final Ever for too long.