The SoapBoxers

No, this won’t be a story about the hoops that teams from “Non-BCS” conferences must jump through in order to gain entry into the BCS games.  While I dislike this inequity – particularly now that computer analysis allows us much greater insight into strength of schedule than in decades past – but this is an issue that many others have raised, and I will let them continue their worthy crusade.

My concern is about the inequity amongst the BCS conferences themselves.  There are six conferences whose champions have automatic berths into the BCS – the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big 10, Pac 10, and SEC.

Three of these conferences – the ACC, Big 12, and SEC – end their season in a battle of the titans (otherwise known as a conference championship game) in which the winners of two divisions face off to determine who the best team in the conference is.

I love watching conference title games because it means seeing two great teams face off, and gives a good glimpse in which teams might be peaking at the end of the season and which teams might be cooling off a bit down the stretch.  The conference title games are also a financial windfall for the conferences.

Two other conferences play a round robin conference schedule.  One of them is the eight team Big East conference.  With just eight teams, a round robin is really the only reasonable schedule.  This conference has changed considerably from the Big East of the past, having lost Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College as members (replacing them with South Florida, Cincinnati, and Louisville).  The current configuration draws criticism as being too weak to deserve an automatic berth in the BCS. 

The second conference that plays a round robin schedule is the Pac 10.  The conference has, of course, ten teams, meaning that they play nine conference games.  There is a strong likelihood that the conference will dump the round robin schedule in the future, as an informal poll of coaches showed that six coaches were opposed to the round robin schedule and four were in favor.  The reasoning behind dumping the round robin?  To allow teams on the cusp of bowl eligibility to replace a Pac 10 rival with a cupcake team on their schedule.

This brings us to the one team that has neither a conference title game nor a round robin schedule.  This is the Big 10 conference, which has, of course, eleven teams.  Big 10 teams play eight conference games, meaning that they avoid playing two conference rivals every season.  My concern is that this could allow two undefeated Big 10 teams to end up in the national championship game, simply because they were able to duck each other during the regular season.

Does this sound far fetched?  Let’s turn the calendar back to 2002.  At the end of the regular season, Ohio State and Iowa were both undefeated in conference games.  Ohio State was 13-0 and headed to the national championship game.  Iowa had tripped 36-31 in a game against Iowa State during the non-conference game early in the season.  If Iowa had been able to make it through the non-conference schedule without a loss they would also have been in serious consideration for a spot in the title game.  (Note: an undefeated Miami was the BCS #1 team that year heading into the title game, so in all likelihood, one of the Big 10 teams would have been left out of the game – but the possibility would have been there).

I am strongly opposed to the possibility of settling a conference title in the national championship game.  If two teams from a particular conference emerge as the two best teams in the land, I’m OK with that.  But don’t leave open the door for two strong teams to duck the most difficult team in their conference en route an undefeated record.

I am calling for the BCS to change the eligibility for the BCS title game to allow only teams from conferences that decide their champion on the field – either via a round robin schedule or a conference title game.  This would force the Pac 10 to retain their round robin schedule and force the Big 10 to either add a conference title game (which would necessitate adding a twelfth team) or expanding the conference schedule to ten games (allowing only two cupcakes per season instead of four).  After all, if you’re not sure who best team in the conference is, why should we crown one of your teams as the national champion?

The Heene Hoax

On Thursday, much of the country was transfixed on a weather balloon floating across the Colorado sky.  A six year old boy had apparently climbed into a box that was attached to the balloon and untethered the balloon, allowing it to float at heights of up to 7000 feet.  Authorities were alerted, and news organizations quickly volunteered the services of their helicopters to track the balloon.  This was a Big Deal.  When the balloon landed, little Falcon Heene was nowhere to be found.  Everyone feared for the worst.

Then, amazingly, the boy was found, safe and sound.  It appears that he had been hiding in the attic.  The family began to make the rounds on TV until a slip-up by the boy made people wonder if this was in fact a hoax.  This family had been on Wife Swap – were they trying to get another fifteen minutes (or more) or fame?

On Sunday, authorities said that charges are expected to be filed.  It is expected that those charges will include a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report as well as felony charges of conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor (by causing the kids to make false statements to the police), and attempting to influence a public servant (I’m not exactly sure what this refers to).

In addition, the Heenes may find themselves on the hook for the cost of the search.  I certainly hope so – it doesn’t seem fair to have the taxpayers foot the bill for their publicity stunt.

Big Ben Strikes Back

In July, Andrea McNulty sued Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, claiming that he had sexually assaulted her.  The lawsuit sought $440,000 in damages from Roethlisberger and $50,000 in damages from Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, where the woman worked (and where the incident was alleged to have occurred).

It is certainly possible that an athlete would rape a woman.  In fact, in a lot of cases, I would give the women the benefit on the doubt.  However, in this particular case, I didn’t feel that she was believable.  The fact that a co-worker filed an affidavit claiming the McNulty bragged to her about the incident was not the reason for  my opinion.  Obviously, it is possible to buy the testimony of witnesses.

The main reason why I don’t believe Ms. McNulty is because she never filed criminal charges.  Perhaps I’m missing a key element here – if you wanted to see the perpetrator punished, why wouldn’t you file a criminal complaint and have them put behind bars?  After all, you wouldn’t want this to happen to someone else, right?  I can understand someone not filing charges if they didn’t want the rape to become public knowledge – but McNulty then turned around and made it public knowledge by filing the civil suit.  These two pieces don’t seem to fit together.  Perhaps I’m missing some important information …

Something that was immediately noticed by many people was the fact that Roethlisberger, in his denials, never said that he didn’t know McNulty or that he didn’t have sex with her.  He only said that he didn’t force himself on her – which left open the possibility of consensual sex.

On Friday, the other shoe dropped.  Roethlisberger counter-sued McNulty for extortion, abuse of process, and defamation of character.  Big Ben’s version of the events (supported by the affidavit from McNulty’s co-worker) was that  McNulty seduced him, and that the sex was consensual.  I’ll report further developments in these two cases.

Perhaps there’s a lesson here.  Don’t have sex with strangers.

Note: I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea here.  I definitely believe that rape / sexual assault is a very serious crime and that the punishment should be severe.  I simply don’t believe that a rape occured in this case.

The final chapter was finally written in my saga with HSBC.

On Friday night, I made  a quick trip to get some over-the-counter medications at the drug store and some groceries at the grocery store.  My HSBC card was declined at both places.  (Why did I try at the second place after it was declined at the first?  Just in case the problem was related to the store).  When my wife (primary cardholder) informed HSBC, she was told that this was due to a problem the Mastercard was having during this timeframe.  This may indeed be correct, but I’m unable to find any news stories about this.  Did anyone else experience problems with Mastercards being declined on Friday night?

In any case, this was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.  We decided to cancel the card.  It did take a bit of effort for my wife to convince the HSBC rep to actually cancel the card.  We received a notification on Saturday that the account had indeed been closed.  A big sigh of relief as we put this behind us.

We were running quite a lot of purchases through the card in order to take advantage of the cash back rewards (while paying off the full balance every month, of course).  I suspect that HSBC would consider our level of use to be rather substantial.

For those of you who didn’t read the original article, here’s a recap of the chronology.

• I do some research and find the HSBC Weekender card, which features 1% cash back on all purchases and 2% on all weekend purchases.  This sounded like a great deal.  (And, in fact, it was.  Redeeming the cash rewards was pretty easy).
• My wife signs up for the card and then does additional paperwork to add me as a second card holder.  This means that she gets her card before I get mine.
• My wife activates the card via the 1-800 number.  She attempts to use the card later that weekend and to her great embarrassment, it gets declined.  Why?  Because there was some sort of a problem with the automated authorization system.  (Note: this isn’t listed in the earlier article because I had completely forgotten about it).
• We begin getting calls from telemarketers.  The telemarketers appear to be shy and won’t tell us what they are actually calling about.  This was very bizarre.  We wouldn’t have bought the product or service anyway, but we couldn’t get them to tell us what they were selling.  We were getting a LOT of these calls before calling and complaining a few times.
• HSBC had a security breach (many accounts affected) and had to issue new cards (with different numbers).
• My new card had my name wrong (first and last names transposed).  The HSBC rep seemed to have considerable difficulty grasping the problem and the implications.
• After getting the new card, I try to use the automated authorization number.  This doesn’t work, and I get kicked to a live operator, who tries to sell me additional services while she is activating the card.  Bear in mind that I am speaking to her after a series of THREE problems by HSBC (security breach, wrong name on card, automated authorization failure).
• In April, we were at the mall for our weekly trip to Target and a few other stories.  As we make perhaps the most predictable purchases in the history of the world, HSBC’s fraud alert gets triggered and our card gets locked, causing it to be declined.  These purchases were so predictable that anyone armed with a copy of our past statement could have probably predicted them.  Suspicious was definitely not the word I would use to describe them.
• Five months pass.  Spring gives way to summer, summer gives way to fall.
• I am contacted by someone from the Executive Office of HSBC.  He appears to be genuinely concerned.  It has been five months since we have encountered any actual problems, but I’m happy to work with the if it means fewer troubles for other HSBC customers in the future.  He forwards my case to someone in customer service.  They leave an answering machine message to let us know they are on the case.  Later, they call and ask to speak to me.  Unfortunately, I am temporarily unable to answer the phone, and my wife is unable to focus on the phone call (busy with our toddler) and tells them to call back another time.  Alas, there is not another call.
• Finally, on Friday, the card is declined again and we cancel the card.

The day had finally arrived for Andrew McCormick.  Hours earlier, the sponsor of baseball’s All-Star game had officially announced what had been long rumored – they would be giving away free tickets, accommodations, and travel for ten lucky winners.

Andrew sent off an email that would reach millions of people across the country.

Dear Kosmopolitan Bank customer:

Earlier today, Kosmopolitan Bank, in partnership with Major League Baseball, announced a very exciting contest for our valued customers.  We are giving away sets of four (4) All-Star game tickets, hotel accommodations, and air travel to ten lucky winners!  The grand prize winner will throw out the first pitch at this year’s All-Star game.

To enter, simply visit the contest web site at www.kosmopolitanbankcontests.com.

On behalf of all of the employees of Kosmopolitan Bank, I would like to thank you for 75 years of patronage.  I hope to see you at the game!

Sincerely,

J. Robert Dobbs

CEO, Kosmopolitan Bank Holdings

The web site was not affiliated with the actual bank, of course.  Andrew had spent much time copying many visual elements from the bank’s actual web site.  Visitors to his site were greeted by a page that looked identical to the bank’s official site.  On the first screen, the visitors were asked for their mailing address (so that the tickets could be sent to them if they won) and their birthdate (must be 21 years old to enter).  After filling out the initial screen, they were directed to a second screen.  The second screen asked the visitors to verify that they were indeed a customer of Kosmopolitan Bank.  The screen asked for the visitor’s credit card number, but of course did not ask for the expiration date.  Asking for the expiration date raised too much of a red flag, and really, it wasn’t necessary.  It was child’s play to run the numbers against an authorization program to determine the correct expiration date.  After all, the number of dates was relatively finite.

Andrew sat down at the table and made himself a ham and swiss sandwich.  Certainly, it would only be a few minutes before the first numbers came dribble in, but he wouldn’t be able to project the extent of his harvest for at least an hour or two.  In his early days as an information broker, he would sit, transfixed, at his computer, waiting for the first couple of numbers to be sent to him.  He had gained much wisdom in his old age, however, and the twenty five year old Andrew had the patience to attend to other tasks while the process ran.

Andrew flipped on the TV.  COPS was on again.  It was one of Andrew’s favorite shows – he was amazed at how dumb some of the criminals were.  Andrew finished his sandwich and watched the law enforcement personnel put an end to the chase by surrounding the vehicle.  The guy staggered out – clearly drunk or under the influence of drugs – and suddenly found a dozen guns pointed right at him.  Andrew chuckled.  What a moron.

When the show ended, Andrew channel surfed until he found a baseball game.  He didn’t particularly care about either team, but one of the pitchers had a no hitter through five innings, so Andrew left the TV on the game.  It was bad luck to switch channels when a no-no was in progress.  The pitcher carried the no hitter into the eighth inning.  It was broken up by a clean single to center field – amazingly, the runner was then thrown out trying to stretch the hit into a double.  Andrew chuckled again.  The morons were out in large numbers tonight.

Andrew deserted the game and went back to his computer.  He already had 5,617 numbers.  This was a good yield.  Base on the trending analysis for his previous projects, he estimated that he would gather about 65,000 numbers before authorities shut the site down.

Andrew sent a coded message to his client.  They quickly negotiated a fair price for the numbers.  Andrew and the client had a great working relationship.  Andrew’s data always contained a very high percentage of valid numbers (because his sites looked very authentic), and the client accepted the fact that a certain percentage of the data would  be bogus – people who figured out the scam and entered false data.  Some guys could be a real dick about the bad data, but his client knew that it was the nature of the beast.

Exhausted from the day’s activities, Andrew crawled into bed and fell asleep – dreaming of newer and bigger adventures.

Former commissioner Bart Giamatti (yes, father of the actor Paul Giamatti) said it best in his essay The Green Fields of the Mind. Here is the short version of his masterpiece:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops. – A. Bartlett Giamatti

Tonight, on the 12th of October, just as the temperatures in Iowa have begun consistently flirting with the freezing mark, it would appear that baseball has once again deserted me.  After all, my Rockies have been eliminated from the playoffs.  After salvaging a split against the Phillies in the City of Brotherly Love, they returned to the Mile High City needing simply to defend their own turf and win their two home games to continue on in the playoffs.

Sunday night’s game was a wrenching defeat, made even more difficult by the phantom hit of Chase Utley.  After the game, the umpire admitted that he had the call wrong, and that the play should have been ruled a foul ball, forcing Utley back into the batter’s box, rather than allowing the result of the play to stand.

Monday night’s game, if possible, was even more heartbreaking.  At long last, it appeared that the Rockies were getting a few breaks.  In the seventh inning, trailing by a run, Seth Smith reached second when Raul Ibanez misplayed a ball in the outfield.  Unfortunately, Barmes and Spilly stranded Smith.

In the eighth inning, the luck finally turned the complete 180 I had been waiting for.  With one out in the inning and speedster Dexter Fowler on first base, Todd Helton hit a ball to Phillies second baseman Chase Utley that should have been an easy double play to end the inning.  Fowler – who was running behind Utley (because running in front of Utley would have screened Utley from the ball and would have been interference on Fowler) decided to leap over Utley.  In the midst of the chaotic play, shortstop Jimmy Rollins mishandled the toss from Utley – Fowler and Helton were both safe.

If Fowler was able to hurdle Utley without making contact, this would have been a legal play.  If he did make contact, I believe this could have been ruled interference, although I’m not 100% sure of this.  In any case, it seemed that the balance of “weird sh*t” plays had been restored, with the Fowler play compensating for the Utley play on Sunday.  It seems impossible that he could have jumped over Utley without touching him, right?  Then again, Fowler is a great athlete.

Sure enough, the hits kept coming.  Jason Giambi knocked home Fowler to tie the game and Yorvit Torrealba doubled to plate two more runs to push the Rockies out to a 4-2 lead.  After three Phillies had come to the plate in the 9th inning, there were two out and a runner on first base.  Victory was easily within grasp.

At which point the floodgates opened.  After Utley walked on a full count (meaning that the Rockies were just a strike away from victory) big bopper Ryan Howard tied the game with a double and Jason Werth put Philly ahead for good, plating Howard.  The Rockies put on two runners in the bottom of the ninth, but Troy Tulowitzki struck out the end the season.

So, then, where do we go from here?

Well, first of all, the playoffs are still ongoing, despite the absence of the Rockies.  Each series has a team that I hate (Dodgers and Yankees), making it easy to pull for the Phillies and Angels.  Certainly I will watch much more post-season baseball – and when I am unable to watch, I will be listening.

OK, but after the season actually ends.  Then what?

Well, free agency isn’t far away.  The one pending free agent who is near and dear to my heart, of course, is Matt Holliday.  Will Holliday sign with a team I like (Cardinals) or a team I hate (Yankees – ack)?  Certainly, I will engage people in banter about why the free agent compensation is horribly flawed and needs to be completely redone.

There is the Arizona Fall League and winter leagues in Latin America, of course.  I intend to follow them with much more passion this year.  I’ll even pick out a team at some point.

There are many baseball books in my personal library that I need to finish – everything from books of the physics of the sport to Tim Kurkjian’s feel good  book “Is This  A Great Game, of What?”

Then, of course, the new books will come out.  Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster (The Bible of Fanalytics) is the one I eagerly anticipate each year, but surely another one or two books will catch my eye.  I’ll dust off my printed copy of the baseball collective bargaining agreement and read a few more sections.  While I can’t say for certain that I am more familiar with the CBA than the typical player, I wouldn’t be shocked if this were the case.

I’ll spend some time researching things on the web, of course.  Baseball Reference.com has wonderful tools, and I’ll have to make sure to use them all at some point.  John Sickels will certainly be at work during the winter, informing the world about minor league players on Minor League Ball.com.  And my peeps at Purple Row will be chattering about the Rockies all winter long.

Then, of course, there will be a short break for the winter Olympics, which features luge and a bunch of lesser sports.  By the time luge wrap up, spring training will be here, and the cycle will begin anew.

You see, there really is no offseason – simply a different phase of the year-long baseball season.

Three teams were quickly eliminated from the playoffs, with the Dodgers bouncing the Cardinals, the Yankees beating the Twins, and the Angels defeating the Red Sox. All three of those series went the minimum three games.

The most heartbreaking loss had to be the Cardinals loss in game two of their series. Holliday had hit a homer earlier in the game, and with two outs in the ninth inning, a ball was hit directly at him for a certain out. Unfortunately, Holliday lost track of the ball. It bounced off his, er, “cup” and the batter reached base. A rally ensued, and the Dodgers won the game. Holliday’s mis-play didn’t hand the game to the Dodgers – it merely gave them life. If the pitcher manages to strand that baserunner, we forget about the Holliday play. Unfortunately, the sequence of events that follow was walk, single (tying run scores), passed ball, walk (winning run scores).

Perhaps Holliday will want to avoid leaving St. Louis on a bad note and will sign with them as a free agent after the season. If Holliday doesn’t sign with the Rockies (unlikely) I’d love to see him with the Cardinals. The Cardinals fan I conversed with after the game don’t seem to be turning Holliday into a goat.

Alex Rodriguez appear to be making strides toward removing the label of post-season choke artist from his resume (an unfair label, in my opinion). In the three games against the Twins, A-Rod homered twice and drove in six runs. In game two, he accounted for all of the scoring in regulation with an RBI single in the sixth and a game-saving 2 run homer in the bottom of the ninth to send the game to extra innings, where the Yankees won on a Mark Teixeira homer. Give the game two game ball to A-Rod.

One series is still active – the NLDS series pitting the Phillies against my Rockies. In game one, Cliff Lee pitched a great game. Lee went the distance in the game and allowed just 1 run on 6 hits and walked none, while throwing 79 of his 113 pitches for strikes. I tip my hat to Lee.

In game two, Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook was sailing along through five innings, allowing just four hits and two walks. The Phillies got three hits to start the sixth inning (all three runs would score) and Cookie headed for the showers. The Rockies would hang on to win the game 5-4. The big hit in the game was a two run dinger by catcher Yorvit Torrealba off Phillies starter Cole Hamels. The following day, Hamels became a father for the first time. Congratulations, Cole.

The series was supposed to resume on Saturday. To my great disappointment, this did not happen. The game was snowed out, pushing game three of the series to Sunday and game four to Monday. An interesting side note is that that Pedro Martinez – noted for his dislike of cold weather – was the scheduled starter for Saturday. When the weather pushed the games back, Jay Happ was put into the starter’s role for game three (with Lee and Hamels the likely starters for games four and five.

Game three was a back and forth game early, with both starting pitchers gone by the end of the 4th inning. The Phillies pulled ahead on a 9th inning sacrifice fly RBI by Ryan Howard in the 9th inning and Brad Lidge stranded Carlos Gonzalez and Eric Young Jr to end the game and notch the save.

The runner who scored the winning run for the Phillies (Jimmy Rollins) moved to third base on an awkward dribbler of an infield hit by Chase Utley. It is unclear whether the ball hit Utley while he was in the batter box or not. If it DID hit Utley, it should have been ruled a foul ball, and the at bat would have resumed. However, the umpire apparently believed that it did not hit Utley, which is possible. Once of the announcers noted that a batter who is hit by a foul will often “freeze” in the batter’s box. For most batters, this is true – but Utley is a savvy player. If the ball did hit him (which, agin, I admit, it might not have) he may have realized that the smart move was for him to pretend that it hadn’t, and race toward first base and allow Rollins to move to third.

The Rockies and Phillies will face off again on Monday. Hopefully the Rockies can pick up a win against Cliff Lee and push the series back to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, the lefthanded starters for the Phillies are forcing some of our good bats to the bench because of matchup reasons.

The start times for this series have been awful. Two early afternoon starts in games 1 and 2 and a very late start time for Sunday’s game. The game started at 8 PM Denver time, which is 9 PM in the land of Kosmo and 10 PM in Philadelphia. The game was quite long, ending more than four hours later. 1:15 is kind of late for me to stay up … but luckily I don’t have to work in the morning!

(Yep – I finished writing this up after the game – it’s 1:25 local time right now!)

Myron Buford climbed out his apartment window and sat down on the ledge outside.

This was nothing new for Myron. He would, on occasion, sit on the ledge and observe the frenzy occurring ten floors below – people racing to and from in the great rat race of life, as well and the infrequent appearance of the small animals who once had this territory all to themselves. Sitting on the ledge was very relaxing for Myron.

This time was different, however. Today, Myron would jump from the ledge, his body would collide violently with the concrete below, and he would die a quick death. Myron definitely hoped that his death would be quick.

Myron’s life had been in a downward spiral for months. His old boss had been replaced by a new manager. The new guy was a relentless task master, and Myron’s life had quickly become a living hell. All of the members of Myron’s team resented the new boss, and everyone had to work long hours of unpaid overtime to meet his demands. The boss had been particularly demanding of Myron, and Myron eventually got hopelessly behind. He tried to cover up his failures with a series of lies, and the boss had eventually uncovered the truth. Myron had been fired – kicked out onto the street after ten years with the company.

His girlfriend had been very supportive at first. Eventually, though, she simply couldn’t handle having a boyfriend who was unemployed. She went looking for greener pastures. To make the situation even worse, she was now dating the son of Myron’s former boss.

Just two days ago, Myron’s dog had died. Yesterday, he got a parking ticket while he was filling out paperwork at the unemployment office. He received a notice from the video store about a long overdue video – they wanted $88.42 in late charges! His favorite TV show had been cancelled by the heartless studio executives. And Myron thought that he just might be coming down with the flu. His life really wasn’t worth a plugged nickel.

Myron decided to take in the view of the street below one last time before he ended it all. He noticed that a light snow flurry had begun, making the people quicken their pace in an effort to stay dry. The snow reminded Myron of the upcoming Christmas season.

Christmas had always been Myron’s favorite time of the year. The presents were great, of course, but they were secondary to the holiday itself. Myron loved going to midnight mass to reflect on Christ’s birth in a manger so many years ago. He loved the Christmas dinner of beef roast and mashed potatoes that his mother prepared every year. The highlight for Myron, though, was spending time with his family. Christmas was one of the rare occasions on which he was able to spend time with his parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews.

As Myron got caught up in remembrances of Christmas past, he began counting his blessings. His dog may have died, but his pet goldfish was still swimming happily along. His favorite show may have been cancelled, but he did have all eleven seasons on DVD. He could watch reruns until he found a new show to watch. He had glowing recommendations from some former co-workers and would probably land a decent job before long. If his girlfriend wouldn’t stick with him through the hard times, it was probably better to find out now, rather than five years down the line. Heck, his favorite author had a new book coming out next week – he definitely needed to wait for that. Life was indeed worth living.

Myron was lost in happy thoughts as he moved back toward the window. He didn’t notice how slippery the ledge had become until he was sliding off. He managed to grab onto the ledge with one hand for a few seconds, but quickly lost his grip and fell to his death below.

This marks the 300th article in the history of The Soap Boxers!  We’re actually a bit above 300, as a small handful of articles were removed for  various (but very good) reasons.  By our formal counting, we’re at 300, though.

I was hoping that article #300 would be a splashy, fantastic article.  However, my productivity has really taken a hit over the course of the last week.  Some sinus issues have been causing some headaches and some other issues with my eyes.  Nothing serious, but enough to limit the amount of time I want to spend in front of a monitor and the headaches also make it a bit difficult to concentrate for a long period of time.  So I’ll just ramble for a bit today.  These issues are also hampering my work on the “long” story for this quarter, and that really sucks.  I’m on some steroid drops for my eyes, so if I start lashing out angrily at people, blame the ‘roids.  My left eyelid isn’t drooping involuntarily any more, which I see as a good thing.  Hopefully I’ll return to my usual verbose self quite soon.

Politics

Very soon, we will be adding a brand new feature to The Soap Boxers.  I have christened the feature The Political Observers.  Each week, a different political columnist will write an article on the topic of their choice.  The goal is to have two conservative writers and two liberal writers and alternate viewpoints.  I am still looking for an additional liberal writer.  We’ve had some delays getting this off the ground, but it WILL happen before long.  The columns will appear on Thursdays.

Although I strive to have balance within the political feature, I am not trying to pretend that the content of The Soap Boxers is neutral.  If you perceive a slant toward one particular direction, your perception is probably correct.  (If you’re not perceiving the slant, I won’t go out of my way to point it out).  For the rest of the articles on the site, I have made an effort to line up the best possible writers, with little regard to their political leanings.

The Lost Symbol

Yikes – I can’t believe that I don’t have this book done yet – but I simply haven’t had the time.  I’ve had a bit more time the last few days (due to being forced to limit computer time) and am creeping up on the halfway point in the book.  I really hope to finish the book up in the next week.  When I was younger, I could read a 500 page book in the course of a day … but I also had exponentially more spare time back then.

Colorado Rockies

Can the magic carpet ride continue? Huh – do you really think I’m going to throw my team under the bus? The Rockies dug themselves a huge hole early in the season, and played well enough the rest of the season to be on the cusp of the top record in the National League on Saturday. It didn’t happen, but they controlled their own destiny at that point.

The Rockies aren’t a team of superstars, though. There’s not a 40 homer slugger or a 20 game winner. In fact, there’s only one .300+ hitter – Todd Helton.

The team does have interesting depth, though. When catcher Chris Iannetta was struggling, Yorvit Torrealba provided some productive at bats. 24 year old Ian Stewart grabbed the starting 3B job from Garrett Atkins early in the year and hit 25 homers – but the former All Star Atkins was available as a right handed bat in the lineup. Brad Hawpe, Dexter Fowler, Carlos Gonzalez, and Seth Smith all logged quality time in the outfield.

On the pitching side, although nobody racked up more than 16 wins, all five starters won at least ten games, and all five also finished above .500.

The post-season is more of a sprint rather than a marathon, though, and the days off between series provide more rest than in the regular season – making depth less important.

Then there’s also the issue of the Phillies having a lefty heavy starting rotation to throw at us. Still, strange things happen in the post-season (remember that grand slame by, of all people, Kaz Matsui? Surely, you remember that, Evan) and I predict that the magic carpet ride does indeed continue! Rocktober redux, Rockies!

Philadelphia Phillies

Is Jamie Moyer a Hall of Famer? Ok, I’m stealing this ridiculous question from an ESPN.com poll earlier in the season. Sadly, half the people that that Moyer either was a HOF caliber player, or could grind his way in. In actuality, even if the septuagenarian (OK, he’s “only” 46) does get the 42 more wins he needs to get to 300, he won’t make it into the Hall of Fame – although he’d be a great candidate for the “Hall of Pretty Good for a Really Long Time and Cashed a Lot of Paychecks Along the Way.”

OK, my actual question. Is Charlie Manuel making a mistake by going with Brad Lidge as the closer? I understand that Lidge has been a fine closer over the course of his career. This year, however, Lidge has been bad, bad, bad. His BEST monthly ERA this year is the 5.91 he posted in July. Righties are hitting him, lefties are hitting him, his walk rate is up, his strikeout rate is down. Sure, he had 31 saves, but he also blew 11 save opportunities and was saddled with 8 losses (but, alas, not a single win). Are the bright lights of the post-season really the best environment for him to work out his issues?

St. Louis Cardinals

Are the Cardinals the best team in the National League? Pujols and Holliday are a formidable force in the heart of the lineup. On the pitching side, you could make a case that Adam Wainright and Chris Carpenter (or Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainright) should be 1-2 in the Cy Young voting.

You want leadership? How about John Smoltz on the pitching staff. Or manager Tony LaRussa and pitching coach Dave Duncan in the dugout. You want more supportive fans than the Busch faithful? You’ll be hard pressed to find them. St. Louis is a baseball town and darn proud of it.  My wife came to grips with this realization during a recent trip to St. Louis when she noticed that there were roughly 417 stores selling Cardinals merchandise for every one store selling Rams stuff.

I’d love to see the Rockies in the World Series, but I suspect that the Cardinals will emerge with the pennant.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Are the Dodgers toast? Yeah, stick a fork in them, they’re done. They stumbled to a 31-28 record after July 31 and very nearly coughed up the division title to the Rockies (who had trailed them by 15.5 games back in June).

This really hasn’t been the same team that burst out of the gates and established itself as the best team in baseball early in the season. Their rotation has been a bit in flux, and they’ll run up against Wainright and Carpenter in the first two games on the NLDS. I predict a quick exit for the Dodgers.

Wonder if the Dodgers are kicking themselves for not trading straight up for Jason Bay instead of Manny?  Interesting how Bay seems to get left out of conversations that center around how AL players always get better when they go to the NL – Bay hit 36 homers this year, in his first full season in the AL.

New York Yankees

Will A-Rod finally get the post-season monkey off his back? A-Rod drove in 7 runs in a single inning on Sunday. Certainly a fine achievement, but it wasn’t in the post-season, so it really doesn’t count, huh?

Would you believe me if I told you that A-Rod has put up better career post-season numbers than Derek Jeter?

Well, if you use OPS – a stat that any people swear by – it’s true. A-Rod’s career post-season OPS is .856, Jeter’s is .845. Jeter has more than a few post-season series in which he put up less-than-stellar numbers – but the fact that he has so many post-season plate appearances (563, to just 170 for A-Rod) has simply given him more opportunities to shine – and that’s what the fans remember.

Enough about Jeter, though. Will A-Rod shine this post-season? Sure, why not? He’s a hell of a hitter – the law of averages is bound to swing his way.

AL Central Winner

Do the Tigers or Twins have a shot against the Yankees?

No.

Even if they didn’t have to face a team that won 17 more games than them during the regular season, the scheduling creates a huge disadvantage for them. Unlike one game playoffs in the past, there is no off day in between the one game playoff and the first game of the ALDS. So the team wins the game, jets off to New York, and then awakens to face the New York media before facing off against the Bronx Bombers with a depleted pitching staff?  Yikes.

This seems doubly unfair to the Tigers. They have absolutely no control over the scheduling conflict on Monday (Packers at Vikings on Monday Night Football), yet they suffer the consequences. I realize that the Twins won the right to host the one game playoff, but shouldn’t there be a stipulation that you have the ability to provide a venue on the specified date?

Note: This does, of course, assume that the Yankees choose to start their ALDS series on Wednesday, rather than Thursday. I can’t imagine why they would choose to give their opponents a day to recuperate – I wouldn’t.

Boston Red Sox

Is David Ortiz finished, done, kaput? Seriously, how can you ask this question? Are you still looking at his early season stats? The dude finished with 28 homers, 99 RBI, and within spitting distance of a .800 OPS. Those aren’t the fantastic numbers that we expect from Ortiz, but neither are they the dreadful numbers that we saw early in the year. From May 31 through the end of the season, Ortiz posted an OPS of exactly .900, with 27 homers in 368 at bats. Watch for Big Papi to have a strong post-season.

Angels

Did the Angels disrespect Nick Adenhardt? During the Angels’ celebration of their AL West title, some members of the team sprayed the jersey of Adenhart with champagne and beer. The 22 year old Adenhart was killed by a drunk driver after making his first start in April.

Honestly, it took me a second to even figure out what the fuss was. It was the fact that alcohol was a connection – being used both in the celebration and in the accident. However, I feel that Nick’s teammates were simply trying to include him in the celebration, much as they tried to include his memories in activities all season long.

I can never write more than a few sentences about Adenhart without getting choked up at the sadness surrounding his death. RIP, Nick.

Want more playoff coverage? Check out the SBNation blogs of all the playoff teams.

Rockies

My Colorado Rockies started the season 20-32. They had the second worst record in the National League, trailing only the dreadful Washington Nationals. Heading into Saturday’s game with the Dodgers, the Rockies’ record stood at 92-68. Not only was this the best in franchise history, but it also left the Rockies within striking distance of finishing the regular season with the best record in the National League. They simply need to win the final two games to surge past the Dodgers, claim the National League West title, and sail into the playoffs as the #1 seed.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers halted the six game winning streak of the Rockies on Saturday, handing them the loss that eliminated them from contention for the division title, relegating the Rockies to the role of wild card participant. While this is disappointing for a number of reasons (including the fact that we will not face off against Matt Holliday’s Cardinals in the first round), it is worth noting that the 2007 World Series participant Rockies also qualified as the wild card.

In my quarter century of following baseball, I have now been a fan of five playoffs teams – the 1984 and 1989 Cubs and 1995, 2004, and 2007 Rockies. While this is not a particularly strong track record, it does tend to magnify that magical feeling of the playoffs.

Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has been a catalyst during the Rockies surge. Through June 6, Tulo was batting a lackluster .216 with 5 homers and 16 RBI in 167 at bats (.683 OPS). Since June 7 Tulo has pulled a complete 180 and hit .332 with 27 homers and 76 RBI in 377 at bats (1.038 OPS). In early June, nobody could have guessed that he was going to finish with 30+ homers and 90+ RBI.

AL Central

In the AL Central, the Twins and Tigers were locked in a tight battle going into the final day of the season. The Twins were seven games out of first place on September 7, but a streak of eleven wins in twelve games between 13th and 26th brought them within striking distance of the Tigers.

On Tuesday, they had faced off against Detroit in a double header, with the Tigers protecting a 2 game lead. A sweep of the two games would have pushed the Twins into a tie for the division lead. The Tigers managed to win one of the games, keeping their advantage at two games. A win the next day pushed their advantage to 3 games with just 4 games remaining in the season. This was a nearly insurmountable lead.

Someone neglected to mention this fact to the Twins, who surmounted the lead by beating Detroit in the series finale and taking the first two games in a series against the Royals. Meanwhile, the Tigers lost games to the White Sox on Friday and Saturday. Heading into action on Sunday, the AL Central was dead even. If one team won on Sunday and the other team lost, the winning team would be in the playoffs. If the two teams both won or both lost, they would face off in a one game playoff to determine the division winner.

One game playoffs are typically played the day after the regular season concludes. However, in this case, Minnesota had won their right to host the game (via a coin flip) but there was a scheduling conflict on Monday night – the Vikings and Packers were scheduled to face off in a Monday Night Football game. This would push the game to Tuesday. The extra wrinkle was that their first round playoff opponents – the #1 seed Yankees – would get to decide whether the AL Division Series would begin on Wednesday or Thursday. The prudent move for the Yankees would be to choose Wednesday – forcing the winner of the one game playoff to fly to New York to play a game the next day and eliminating any possibility of rest for the pitching staff.

Of course, Sunday’s results could make this a moot point. So, what happened?

In Detroit, the Tigers jumped out to a 5-0 lead against Chicago and weathered a late White Sox rally to pull out a 5-3 win.  In the Metrodome, Jason Kubel  hit two early three run homers off Royals starter Luke Hochevar en route a 13-4 Twins victory.  The Twins have won 16 of their last 20 games and take that momentum into the one game playoff on Tuesday.  Will Tuesday be the final baseball game in Metrodome history, or will the ‘Dome feature post-season baseball once again?