Patrick Kane was asking for it

(Ed’s note: I hate that I have to say this, but this is satire. Please don’t let it distract from the fact that someone reported they were raped and it’s a serious crime with implications that can last for the rest of someone’s life.)

By Kyle Magin

In early August, star Chicago Blackhawks forward and three-time Stanley Cup Champion Patrick Kane was accused of raping a woman in suburban Buffalo. As every Blackhawks fan worth his or her circa-2010 bandwagon pass will tell you, loudly (and sic’ed), Kaner was ‘targeted by some broad because hes a millionair who wouldnt call her again, jus sayen. $$$’

Leaving aside the fact that scores of athletes who have Q scores larger by factors than Patrick Kane, namely Derek Jeter, have been relentless skirt-chasers since time immemoriam and managed not to be ‘targeted,’ and the general public’s gut-instinct to shit on an accuser, Patrick Kane was asking for a rape investigation.

Look at him in that (now deleted) picture from Sky Bar’s Instagram account (the bar he was allegedly partying at the night of the alleged incident.)

Backwards Bills hat, shiny golf polo with nothing on underneath it, a chain around his neck and what we can only assume is a pleated shorts/topsiders ensemble to round the look out.

 

Kane was just begging for a rape allegation.

How can you expect women to treat you like a man who doesn’t want to be charged with rape when you look like somebody who’s down to give somebody “bite marks on her shoulder and a scratch on her leg after the alleged attack?” Kaner clearly doesn’t even respect himself enough not to dress like a violent rapist, how can he expect to be treated any differently?

And, it’s not like this is some sartorial special occasion for Kaner. He literally dresses in a Blackhawks jersey every day when he goes to work. He clearly wants it when he looks like the suspect lineup in Champaign-Urbana area jails after the first nice Saturday night in spring.

Listen, this is a 26-year-old white male millionaire partying on a rooftop in summer—it’s a wonder his accuser even had to go through the motions of submitting to a rape kit and an investigation to get the job done.

If Kaner didn’t want it, what was he doing going out and drinking to excess? People who aren’t trying to catch a rape allegation don’t do that. If he didn’t want to be accused of brutally raping a young woman, then why did he take her back to his lakeshore home? He could have dropped her off at her house and left her with a kiss at the front door, Richie Cunningham-style.

But it hurts the brain of a moral, upstanding American to think that Kaner dressed like that, is paid like that, drank like that and tried to after-party like that without expecting the whole thing to end in a rape allegation. You can’t even really blame the accuser.

He asked for it.

2015 World Series odds—who to bet and who to forget

Happy Pitchers and Catchers everyone!

Spring Training, where beer tastes like Axe body spray and clear acrylic stilettos. Where the Oakland A’s play in an actual baseball stadium. Where (El) Super Burritos in North Scottsdale flow like well tequila. Where the Pink Pony is a steakhouse not a strip club. Where the poolside bar at Hotel Valley Ho is manned by my favorite former Royal with a porn star baseball name to end all names, Pete LaCock. Where Julian Tavares drives a rickshaw with his face.

Before we make our annual pilgrimage to the base of Camelback, Kyle Magin and myself check in with Bet It or Forget It—every team’s odds to win the World Series. Print it and take it to the book!

By Kyle Magin and Andrew Pridgen

Washington Nationals: 6/1

AJ: Forget it. The Nats’ rotation could be Dwight Gooden, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver and Jim Abbott and I wouldn’t pick them to win a one-man primary. I blame their hiring of Giants’ color guy FP Santangelo prior to the 2010 season (the Giants’ first World Series) on their bad luck.

KM: Forget it. The Nats can’t stay healthy–Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, Anthony Rendon and Bryce Harper have lost massive portions of the last two seasons. The rotation is outstanding and will probably only get better in 2015, but the bats seem to have a hard time grooving together.

Los Angeles Dodgers: 13/2

AJ: Forget it. Are there any years left on Joe Torre’s contract?

KM: Forget it. The weird power outages from the lineup, particularly Yasiel Puig, are too troubling to ignore.

Los Angeles Angels: 10/1

KM: Bet it. In the event that everything goes right for the lineup (big if, I know) you’re looking at two shutdown pitchers at the tail end of last season—CJ Wilson and Matt Shoemaker–going 2-4 times a week. The rotation in Orange County looks special.

AJ: Forget it. Singing cowboy’s former franchise is a year older and Mike Trout is the Gwen Stefani of Orange County baseball; he’d probably have a better go in his own.

St. Louis Cardinals: 12/1

AJ: Bet it. Ordinarily, I’d like to see this more at 20/1 but Matheny’s Cards are like clockwork; guaranteed LCS appearance, what happens from there, nobody knows.

KM: Bet it. The Central’s no walk in the park, but the rest of the NL isn’t exactly dominant. The Cards have been there before and can get back again.

Boston Red Sox: 14/1

KM: Forget it. The lineup is aging, the rotation is improved but not enough to contain the top-end AL lineups they’ll see every other series.

AJ: Forget it. Whether Panda Express out-eats Ortiz at Golden Corral on every road trip is the red herring here, the real problem is pitching. Look for Ramirez to be moved by the All-Star break as the Sox start to build a pen.

Seattle Mariners: 14/1

AJ: Forget it. EVERYONE’s sleeper pick but there’s too big a drop off after Hernandez to matter. The AL West could provide a Wild Card team, but Seattle would play the role of 2014 Pittsburgh.

KM: Forget it. See above.

Chicago White Sox: 15/1

KM: Bet it. Somehow Rick Hahn filled a hole at every need within the organization–Jeff Samardzija, Melky Cabrera and David Robertson solve a lot of problems. One more bat with speed at the trade deadline and the South Siders are in business.

AJ: Forget it. Like Superfan Obama’s first year in office, the resurgent ChiSox got too much too soon. They’ll finish third in the Central but at least there’s a reason to go to the new Comiskey besides you saw it on My Best Friend’s Wedding and want to see what all the fuss is about.

San Francisco Giants 15/1

AJ: Bet it. Not likely to repeat especially since Boch had chest pains after MadBum’s first bullpen sesh—but at 15/1 those odds will shrink considerably should they sniff the playoffs and pull the trigger for the Nats’ odd-man-out Jordan Zimmermann at the deadline. Long-shot, but don’t sleep on the defending champs if Cain gets healthy and Timmy really brought Taye Diggs back from his island vacation.

KM: Forget it. 2015 is an odd number, no?

Chicago Cubs: 16/1

AJ: Forget it. No team this stacked deserves to be 16/1…but the Cubbies. At some point middle-aged Theo is going to channel young Theo and produce a winner. 2015 is not that point.

KM: Forget it. Some nice adds, but the Cubs’ kids still aren’t ready yet. Anthony Rizzo is going to make it a fun ride though, however pointless.

San Diego Padres: 18/1

AJ: Forget it. Money can’t buy you love but hopefully the gorgeous PetCo gets a little more of it beyond Marines on furlough. Kemp’s a clubhouse cancer but those throwback brown unis can make any man change for the better.

KM: Bet it! Justin Upton has a hammer and a change of scenery is exactly what Kemp needed.

Detroit Tigers: 20/1

KM: Forget it. One too many pieces have been dealt away from the rotation to make up for the inevitable slump the bats will hit at some point in the season. The injuries to Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez don’t bode well for the beginning of the season.

AJ: Forget it. Window closing faster than when your hand is hanging out making airplane motions on the freeway and your grandma absent-mindedly rolls it up on you. OK, bad analogy, how ‘bout this: Detroit and their recovery saga is on magazine covers now so the secret’s out…too bad it’s all happening two years too late.

Baltimore Orioles: 25/1

KM: Forget it. This team can’t get on base frequently enough to put a scare into the rest of the league–though they may get out of the weak East.

AJ: Bet it. Hellsyeah. B-more’s been on the cusp for three years and has lost nobody. The only reason they’re 25/1 is because Wei-Yen Chen isn’t playoff tested. I like Bud Norris to win 18 this year.

Cleveland Indians: 25/1

KM: Forget it. Swisher and Bourn were terrible buys and this team doesn’t have enough firepower or financial flexibility to overcome that $30 million in deadweight.

AJ: Bet it. Absolutely. I always choose Cleveland on Griffey for Nintendo 64 so I’m choosing them here. Why on the prior? Man-Ram, Thome, Vizquel, Alomar, Matt Williams, Grissom and Justice. What the FUCK? OK, so Moss, Kipnis, Swisher, Bourn, Brantley and Gomes don’t strike as much fear…or, wait a minute—do they?

New York Mets: 25/1

AJ: Bet it. I’m on record that every 25/1 team is going to get bet by me. Don’t sleep on the Mets’ building on the moderate success of 2014. Cuddyer, Murphy and Wright are the closest Queens has had to a murderers’ row since Mookie, Daryl, Ray and Gary. Kyle, is it true Bobby Bonilla is still on their payroll? Maybe they should get him to be Mr. Met, he wouldn’t even have to wear the head.

KM: Forget it. Bobby B is still definitely getting paid–$1 million a year for the next decade, if memory serves. The Mets’ staff looks strong until you look closely–Matt Harvey is coming off of Tommy John Surgery and Bartolo Colon was born in the Ford administration. That’s an unsteady rack on which to hang your coat.

New York Yankees: 25/1

KM: Forget it. The Yankees have too much tied up in a World Series from a half-decade ago to think about another one any time soon.

AJ: Bet it. More a transition year, but now that the Jeter sheet cake is in the break room garbage bin we can get back to baseball in the Bronx. Nobody’s a lock in the AL East and why not the Yankees-as-underdog?

Pittsburgh Pirates: 25/1

AJ: Bet it. Here we go. The best position player in the game in McCutcheon and four solid starters is a great jump off at PNC. They should take the division and then it’s all kinds of “We Are Family” references come playoff time.

KM: Bet it. McCutcheon is worth 5-8 wins on his own, which should be just enough in the Central.

Kansas City Royals: 30/1

KM: Forget it. Lightning won’t strike twice, especially with the Sox picking up a half-dozen games from somewhere.

AJ: Forget it. They won’t miss Shields or Country Breakfast but the fans have left and now there’s only fountains and Ned Yost…who was just happy to be there in 2014.

Miami Marlins: 30/1

AJ: Forget it. Fuck Florida.

KM: Forget it. Saint Happening.

Toronto Blue Jays: 30/1

KM: Bet it. Edwin Encarnacion is a force of nature heading into a walk year. Joey Bats still has pop in the stick and Josh Donaldson will see a hell of a lot more pitches with protection like that in the lineup. The rotation is a little old, but again, this is the AL East we’re talking about.

AJ: Forget it. Fuck Canada.

Oakland Athletics: 40/1

KM: Forget it. Ike Davis cannot be a solution for your ballclub, especially if you’re still expecting 450-plus at-bats from someone like Coco Crisp. Scott Kazmir will have to do even more for this team than he did last year when he put 190-plus innings on his arm.

AJ: Forget it. Smug Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane’s got another second-place AL West finish in his crosshairs, which is overachieving and buys him one more year of swamp office as Wolff tries to convince yet another investment group that he can build a stadium on the site of the Hegenburger Road Holiday Inn Express.

Texas Rangers: 40/1

KM: Forget it. The Dallas Morning News will go with wall-to-wall ‘Boys coverage starting in April this year instead of May.

AJ: Forget it. Nothing’s left of the 2010 squad though I may watch The Rookie tonight and change my mind (I know he was a Devil Ray but he made his MLB debut at Arlington.)

Houston Astros: 60/1

KM: Forget it. I understand and still dislike ‘the process’ of dismantling your team to rebuild from the ground up. The Cubs are at least tolerable about the whole business and still act like you should expect to see winning baseball. But the ‘Stros are intentionally selling this goddamn shirt. You’re an asshole if you own or think about owning that shirt and deserve… (Googles ‘Astros’)… Jesus, 310 losses in the last three seasons. Have a little shame.

AJ: Bet it. Though I like them more at 75/1 I actually have them as a dark horse to with the AL West. Things have been quiet in Houston too long. Let them play!

Milwaukee Brewers: 60/1

AJ: Forget it. Nothing for recent retiree/part-time owner Bud Selig to see here but sausage races and a Bob Uecker sighting. At 81, he’s about all the Brewers have left.

KM: Forget it. The shock of falling apart like they did at the end of last year–3-7 in the last 10 games after leading the division almost season–isn’t a stink that washes off with one shower. Ask the Red Sox about the beer n’ chicken hangover.

Tampa Bay Rays: 60/1

AJ: Forget it. Longoria is playing third for the Giants by August.

KM: Forget it. Maddon was the straw that stirred the drink in St. Pete.

Cincinnati Reds: 70/1

AJ: Forget it. Reds of late = bigger let down than Kal Daniels.

KM: Bet it! Joey Votto is definitely going to bounce back because guys in their 30s with massive contracts and debilitating lower body injuries have no problem finding their power again.

Atlanta Braves: 90/1

AJ: Bet it. Forget it. Thought it was 2017. the Braves should be trumped by Flintstone’s and Good Times reruns on the Superstation like the good old days this season.

KM: Forget it. How pumped are you if you’re Jason Heyward right now? Sure, you’ve traded one sweltering, shitty southern town for another, but at least you’re clear of the wreckage at Turner.

Minnesota Twins: 100/1

KM: Forget it. A million times forget it. “Hey, we’re trying to rebuild for the future. Let’s fire one of the three best managers in baseball and try to make these spare parts from the Santana/Liriano administration work again!”

AJ: Bet it. Torii and Mauer mash and young pitching doesn’t hurt. Darkhorse to be 2015’s Royals.

Arizona Diamondbacks: 120/1

AJ: Forget it. If the D-backs and Miami ever contract into a single franchise with three world titles that should’ve never been in baseball in the first place, then I’ll bet on them. Till then…

KM: Forget it. The only thing worse than the Gibson years will be life after the Grind King.

Colorado Rockies: 120/1

AJ: Bet it. The best 120/1 which should be 25/1 long-shot on the board. Forgotten in the top-heavy NL West, they have this thing about winning at home and the current rotation is as good as any in the NL (you heard).

KM: Forget it. For more fun than burning any money whatsoever on the Mile High Meltdown, bring up the Monforts to any actual Rockies fan and watch them blow up like that little kid in Looper.

Philadelphia Phillies: 300/1

AJ: Bet it. I learn every three months or so when I watch Rocky never to count Philly out—especially when they’re 300/1 shots. Easy money.

KM: What the hell, bet it. I enjoy Always Sunny and Ryan Howard’s Subway commercials. It’d be fun to get another 7 years of those two things.

 

Forbes’ Tom Van Riper is the least boring blogger in the world

Forbes scribe Tom Van Riper recently wrote a shitty piece of link bait column about how the San Francisco Giants play boring baseball and because they do they’re a World Series ratings killer.

Van Riper has very voluminous hair, which is not boring.

His mug shot looks like he’s about to ride off on a stallion toward a supernova inside the Sears Portrait Studio, which is similarly not boring.

His pained-and-mysterious look says, “The chocolate fountain just broke at Golden Corral.” Or “Why couldn’t they have found just a small part for my boy Seth McFarland in the JJ Abrams Star Wars reboot?”

Nothing boring about that.

His not-boring rant is sounds like it’s from an alarmingly hungover commuter yelling spittle flecks on the steering wheel at sports talk radio from the cockpit of his ’97 Integra.

Van Riper said the boring-ass Giants, by making it to the World Series this year, are actually a threat to ratings (again). This is exciting commentary and also a bit of a strange way of putting things. It’s like saying the Loch Ness Monster not being real is a threat to Santa Claus. It’s linear logic, yes, but not necessarily the correct linear logic.

Not correct linear logic can never be boring. Ask the people in charge of the Creation Museum.

The rest of his salient points unfold in similarly un-boring ways.

They are as such:

• The NBA has the San Antonio Spurs. Major League Baseball has the San Francisco Giants. Steady, efficient, in the championship mix about every other year. And also boring.
I’m not sure what’s boring about a culture of winning or a potential sports dynasty to Van Riper. I guess using that line of logic, the ’36-’43 Yankees are the most boring teams in the history of baseball. Reggie Jackson in October is boring. Highlights of the Showtime Lakers are boring. The Madden Raiders and the Tom Landry Cowboys? …Boring. The Epstein-era Red Sox and those early Core Four years of Yankee return to dominance = boring. Michael Phelps in the pool is boring. Clint Eastwood with a maybe-empty chamber is super boring. Jennifer Beals ripping off her welding gear and dancing is over-the-top boringness boring. D-Day = boring. Because if winning against the odds is boring, than isn’t America boring? I put it to you Tom. Isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to the Giants. But we’re not going to sit here—and listen to you badmouth …the United States of America.

• The Giants have already given Fox its lowest World Series rating ever, an average of 12.7 million viewers for their four game sweep of the Detroit Tigers in 2012.
This is an incomplete (but far-from-boring) statistic. Viewership in general of the World Series has been in steady decline since 1987. Cable, video games, mobile devices, Snap Chat storing all your nudie selfies and lots and lots and lots of internet porn have cut ratings in half since the Royals last made it to the Fall Classic three decades ago. I could refute Van Riper’s stat with a statement like, “What baseball really needs is an all-West Coast Series.” You have to go back to game one of the 1988 World Series (A’s vs Dodgers) to see the staggering numbers of 34.5 million or a 24 share tune in.

Van Riper did mention ratings bump up the closer series get to game seven and by only going a maximum of five games in their last two WS victories, the Giants didn’t give Fox that boost. Using Van Riper’s own hate-reader friendly logic, looking at a sample set of World Series Game 4s of the past six years reveals this:

2013 Red Sox v. Cardinals: 16 million/9.4 share
2012 Giants v. Tigers: 15.5 million/9 share
2011 Cardinals v. Rangers: 15.2 million/9 share
2010 Giants v. Rangers: 15.5 million/9 share
2009 Yankees v. Phillies: 22.9 million/13.5 share
2008 Phillies v. Rays: 14.5 million//9 share

With the exception of the 2009, all these numbers are virtually identical whether it’s Red Sox, Cardinals, Phillies, Rangers or Rays …or Giants. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. The Yankees all but guarantee a ratings boon, or at least a moderate spike in not-boring. Thus, a more accurate statement by Van Riper would be, “The Yankees should get a free pass to the World Series every year because the Yankees aren’t boring.”

• How boring are the Giants? Since their 8-0 thrashing of the Pirates in the National League play-in game, they’ve scored 27 runs in eight postseason games against Washington and St. Louis, an average of 3.4 per game.
Does this mean good clutch pitching is boring? Yes. To score a paltry 3.4 runs a game and win a wild card game, a division series and a National League pennant means the winning team would have to hold the opponent to fewer than three runs a game. Does this mean Koufax (.95 post-season ERA) was boring? How bout Riviera (.70) Whitey Ford? Was his .00 single-series ERA boring? How about Andy Pettitte with 19 post-season wins. Was that boring? It was pretty boring if I recall correctly. Talk about boring …Curt Schilling’s 11 post-season and one curse-breaking bloody sock? Boooorrrring. Is single-pitcher dominance in the post-season boring? Um, hells-to-the-fuck-yeah it is. Randy Johnson and Felix Rodriguez notching five wins each and the likes of Schilling, Cliff Lee, John Smoltz, Time Lincecum, Cole Hamels, Dave Stewart, Josh Beckett and Orel Hershiser with four. That’s one boring-ass group of dudes. Baseball historians especially classify mastery on the mound and grit under pressure as one of the more boring aspects of the game.

• The (Giants) pitching staff is dull, too. The only standout, Madison Bumgarner, is a soft-tossing lefty who doesn’t exactly evoke memories of Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez glaring in at a catcher’s sign before blowing away a hitter on a 99 MPH fastball.
Whoa, wait. OK now I KNOW Van Riper, whose biopic will star puffy Val Kilmer as him, probably hasn’t watched baseball this postseason—maybe ever. (Hint: Why? Because baseball is boring.) At 6’5″ 235, “Big Country” Bumgarner throws a four-seamer about 94-96, a 90-mph slider, a curve that falls off the shelf around 78 and a nice change up at about 84. The Hickory, NC native may have been called a lot of things in his day, including most recently, NLCS MVP, but demure “soft-tosser” (though I have a feeling I know who the soft tosser is in this equation) is not one of them. I bet watching MadBum in an alley soft tossing a six-beer-at-a-time-pounding left hook at Van Riper’s face would probably be pretty boring too.

• The rest of the rotation has averaged just over 5 innings per start during the playoffs, making for a work-share program in which a host of average pitchers manage to string together a lot of effective innings…zzzz.
Want to know some of the pitchers who paved their way to Cooperstown with boring run-stopping, gut-wrenching performances in relief? Try Rivera, with 42 postseason saves. Eckersley with 15. How bout Rollie fingers with 9 and Goose Gossage with 9. You know what’s boring? Great bullpens are boring. The Giants’ bullpen has a 1.78 ERA this postseason. The Royals’, 1.80. All aboard. …Next stop, Grand Boring Station. You know what’s not boring? Onomatopoeia.

• Yes, this all seems unfair for a club that’s had so much success in recent years. But modern sports, fair or not, is a corporate game.
I wonder if Van Riper’s original lede was “Websters Dictionary defines boring as…” (kudos Forbes editors for Van Ripering that one out).

• Efficiency and fundamentals don’t sell, star power does.
Research and fact-checking don’t get clicks. Calling something boring does.

• At least the Spurs are a genuinely great team, even if it’s only the hardcore fan who appreciates them. The Giants aren’t a great team.
I can think of someone else who’s not very great at what he does. Hopefully he has hardcore fans who appreciate him.

• The three remaining contenders highlight a fundamental baseball problem: a watered-down, 10-team playoff field that’s become little more than a crapshoot among decent teams. The business logic for expanding the postseason is obvious: more television inventory. The question is how much the drop in quality will ultimately undermine the quantity. Did you happen to notice that Fox bumped Sunday night’s NLCS game to its Fox Sports 1 cable outlet so it could air “Family Guy” and other prime time programming on its flagship network? Ouch. The game delivered 4.4 million viewers, compared to more than 14 million who tuned into Sunday Night Football on NBC.
Hit me up Seth, I’m on Tinder ❤ TVR

• The Royals and Giants didn’t even win their divisions.
Not winning your division and making it to the big dance is boring and makes for boring TV. Just ask the ’97 or ’03 Marlins, the ’02 Angels, or the ’11 Cardinals. The 2004 Red Sox didn’t win their division and were three outs away from elimination with Riviera on the mound, ostensibly extending Bambino’s 86-year reign (actually they probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place because, you know, Yankees need a bye to the World Series). Instead they staged one of the greatest playoff comebacks of all time and made history as well as life a whole lot easier for Bill Buckner. BOOOOORRIIING. For good measure, boring non-division winners who went on to win championships in Van Riper’s beloved NFL include the ’80 Raiders, the ’97 Broncos, the ’00 Ravens, the ’05 Steelers, the ’07 NY Giants and the ’10 Packers. All boring teams which didn’t belong there in the first place because they weren’t division winners.

• Face it, each club’s ability to outlast the rest of the playoff field so far has been as much about luck as anything else.
Sometimes a little luck can take someone a long way. Take for example lucking into a job at a place like Forbes, a once venerable business publication and now Buzzfeed without the cat .gifs, from a place like the New York Daily News.

• Four of San Francisco’s playoff wins have been by one run. Kansas City’s magical 8-0 postseason also includes four one-run wins; in fact all but one of their eight victories have come by one run and/or in their final turn at bat. The standard baseball cliché is that good teams know how to win the close games. Reality is that the closer the game, the greater role luck plays.
To clarify: One-run games are boring. Winning close games is boring. And doing something over and over and over, like maintaining a winning roster, prevailing by the narrowest of margins or returning to the World Series for the third time in the last half-decade isn’t just boring, it’s sheer dumb luck.

• The World Series has gone the way of every other sports championship not named the Super Bowl: big interest in the home markets, tepid interest elsewhere. The Giants are the perfect microcosm–great stadium and fan base in San Francisco, painfully bland to the rest of the country.
True, San Francisco, its music, food, culture, activism and innovation have always been nothing if not boring bland in the eyes of the rest of the country and the world. Columnists like Van Riper love the word tepid by the way (not a boring word). That and myriad have to get in there somewhere.

…Oh and thanks Van Riper for saying Lincecum lost his mojo. You just woke up a sleeping Giant. Should make for some good (not boring) baseball if you can stop paging Seth McFarland long enough to tune in Tuesday.

Josh Beckett won a pair of World Series rings, married a rocket scientist, banked nine figures and retired at 34 — now who’s the asshole?

Josh Beckett’s career ends with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ breakdown in the 2014 playoffs. It’s ironic that one of the great postseason pitchers the game has ever known—certainly over the last 11 years—would make such an inauspicious exit from the same venue that made him famous.

It’s also fitting that Beckett exits in this manner—quietly during a time when baseball’s attention will be focused elsewhere.

Nobody would want to fete him with a year-long sendoff a la Derek Jeter. Reporters, teammates, coaches and managers have all concluded that Josh Beckett was, in his baseball life, sort of an asshole.

He took an excruciatingly long time between pitches, sure that we were all happy to endure his plodding presence. Massholes, of all people, were happy to see him leave the train wreck that was the 2011 Boston Red Sox—he was purported to be the leader of the Popeyes n’ Pabst pitchers in a clubhouse where his ‘first-class white trash’ bottle opener hung proudly astride his locker.

He got sorta fat for someone who does sports for a living and regularly has four days off to do things that don’t involve becoming fatter.

Many of those things will color Josh Beckett’s legacy, but there was definitely a basis for any entitlement the big Texan righty felt. He entered the league as a prodigy for the then-Florida Marlins at the tail end of 2001. By his first postseason in 2003—at the age of 23—Beckett was answering the fucking bell for manager Jack McKeon and his itchy cigar-lighting finger.

He put the clamps on the San Francisco Giants in a loss in the NLDS (against a Jason Schmidt shutout) before making three appearances in the Chicago Cubs’ nightmare of a championship series (See: Steve Bartman). After a pretty forgettable game one victory, Beckett threw an absolute gem in game 5 to stave off elimination for his squad—a complete game shutout against the likes of Aramis Ramirez, Moises Alou and Sammy Sosa wherein just three Cubs reached base. Two days later, Beckett came on in relief in game 7 to pitch four gutty innings, getting the game to Ugueth Urbina for a victory and returning the Marlins to the World Series.

What did you do at 23?

Josh Beckett played a leading role in one of the four most important league championship series arguably ever.

He wasn’t done there. In the 2003 World Series, Beckett twice pitched on three days rest, striking out 19 Yankees over 16 innings while giving up just 2 runs to go 1-1 (his victory a shutout). He was named MVP. He gathered an ALDS MVP in 2007 after coming over to the Red Sox, going 2-0 against a talented Cleveland Indians lineup and striking out 18 over 14 innings while issuing one walk. In the World Series that year he grabbed his second ring in the Red Sox’ victory lap over the Colorado Rockies.

In 14 postseason appearances, he went 7-3 with three complete games, three shutouts and struck out 99 professional hitters. All of this damage came before his 30th. For good measure, this year, at 34, Beckett no-hit the Phillies during a comeback season after injuries sidelined him for most of 2013.

It’s never excusable to be an asshole. It’s not really hard to be decent to your coworkers or pretend like you care about doing your job. It’s just important to remember that Beckett was basically coasting down from the moon for the past 5-7 years. Thrice an All-Star, he retires far from the bad man o’ the mound he once was. But, when it came to pitching memorable innings under extreme physical duress and outside pressure, Beckett exists in a strata very, very few have ever reached.

Goodbye Jeets

Derek Jeter began his career as a wisp on the calm shores of Baseball-as-National Pastime. He dipped his bat into still waters with the uncanny ability to not lose. Before he could properly puff on a cigar, his right hand was laden with a quartet of rings. But the seas grew rougher. There was a strike. There was steroids. There was scandal.

There was Steinbrenner. There was Seinfeld. Then there wasn’t Steinbrenner.

An old stadium with charm and grit and banners and bunting. A new stadium with cupholders and wi-fi. An all-star game cut short. Congressional hearings. Posters torn from the walls leaving only thumbtacks and forgotten corners. An entire wing in Cooperstown sits empty like a car showroom of a discontinued brand. Weeds are starting to grow through the lot’s split concrete. Nature is taking over.

The championships which came so easily in early career seemed to take a bad hop and skip through his legs. October 2001 seemed as good a time as any for a reboot–the soot of broken hearts barely settled from the world-changing events of the month prior—yet upstart Arizona somehow absconded with the Commissioners Trophy and buried it in the desert.

The man who won four in his first five seasons would have to wait almost a decade, until 2009, to get one for the thumb. In that time, he watched Boston and their beards overcome the curse of the Bambino from the front row in his dugout. He blinked and then goodbye to golden-boy teammates, homegrown in a lab, part pinstripe, part precision, all heart—Jorge and Andy and Bernie and finally Mariano; he watched as they all took that fateful final walk through the outfield grass and into the corn field.

His adopted brother A-Rod got hung up with the wrong crowd. That legacy will be in condominiums and cars and depositions and suppositions.

And then, like it always does in baseball, it came down to a single at-bat. A ninth-inning opportunity for a walk-off against the surprising and youthful division runaways Baltimore—a sprightly and unassuming team reminiscent of Jeter’s own fab five when he first came up.

With one out and a man in scoring position, Jeter didn’t wait for the announcers to set the stage. Forty-eight thousand Yankee fans lucky enough to be able to tell their grandchildren they were there, were there to watch the 40-year-old prodigy-in-winter slap a grounder with surgeon’s precision up the middle infield, dribbling into right for a base hit. Arms up before he punched the bag, his celebration was purely the end of something.

The tears, they did come. His old gang stood on the top step of the dugout, looking sullen and discarded in street clothes, gray streaks and faces drawn. What do these guys do now? Do they go home like the rest of us, cook up some dinner. Sit down and see what’s on. Maybe they stare in the dark and just ponder. Was it real? Could it have been? Was me who was away in the winters? Fishing and training and waiting for spring? Did I put on that uniform, perform out the play of a young boy’s dreams? Did I survive the tempest of the ever more toothless New York media, the gambit of my own owners’ scorn? And now, to this. A study full of mementos. A velvet-lined box in a drawer. Some scribbles on a piece of paper. A framed photo of someone who looks like me but can’t be him.

Shrunk down to mortal size.

*phone rings—it’s a coworker/buddy*
Hey.
Hey.
What’re you doing?
Nothing.
Nothing, nothing?
No. I’m trying to write about Derek Jeter.
Jeter? Why Jeter?
I dunno. It’s time.
You had all season. Season’s over.
I know.
You don’t even like Jeter, do you?
No. I don’t think so. I mean, there’s more to it than that. We’re about the same age and…
(pause) …Hello? (pause)
Sorry, switched to Bluetooth.
Bluetooth—sweet.
Bluetooth is sweet.
You put one of those things in your ear?
No. You’re just on speaker.
Oh.
Where you watching the wild card games?
I dunno. Home I guess. I was going to maybe take the bus into work and have a few beers but the last bus home is like at eight.
That sucks.
Yeah.
So what’re you writing about Jeter?
I don’t know. I was debating. I was going to maybe do my career highlights next to his, but that seemed a little boring even though that’s the point. Or maybe about the chicks he’s banged, but a bunch of people have done that.
Yeah. He’s banged everyone.
Everyone but Erin Andrews from what I can tell.
Don’t mention her.
Why not?
I feel like you’ve mentioned her in your last five columns. It’s getting kind of creepy.
Yeah.
…All right then, I’ll leave you to it. Will be interested to see what you come up with.
Really?
No. Not really. It’s the nice thing to say though—Bluetooth out.
*click*

On June 4, 2003, George Steinbrenner made it official that Jeter was The Captain. Jeter should have had that embroidered on every lapel—and maybe he did—because he became not only The Captain of the Yankee Clipper but of the town as well. “He represents all that is good about a leader,” Steinbrenner said. “I’m a great believer in history, and I look at all the other leaders down through Yankee history, and Jeter is right there with them.”

Though only one ring would come after that and Steinbrenner’s signature white turtleneck and blue blazer would go with The Owner quite literally to the grave, I think Jeter came to mean something more to New York and to baseball.

…It’s not just that Joe-average-guy/flip-flop fan is a little more blah a little more unkempt now; cargo shorts and a baggy shirt to hide some kind of work-a-day contempt sliding off his midsection. Nondescript white Nikes scuffed from tiny outside projects. A faraway look. Baseball, the beautiful game on the radiant grass is somehow less attainable and a little less relevant in the era post-mortgage crisis, post-Wall Street meltdown when nobody gets prosecuted, post-decade-and-a-half war in the Middle East which has no end in sight with a new generation of young men picking up the cause as radicals. Through the centuries, baseball has endured. It has survived world wars and a Depression and a country divided by race and ideology and yet, now in these first days of the collapse of this empire, it just seems so silly at times.

And maybe that’s the point of the end of Jeter. You can argue his stats. You can argue he wouldn’t have been much more than a journeyman infielder had he come up with the Royals, probably in the game for a decade or so before opening up one of those gross warehouse district pitching-and-hitting clinics in Tampa. But that’s not how it did go down. History is all grand brushstrokes and revisionist memory. And so, when he did step up to the plate and collect that game-winning hit, his 3,463rd—the sixth most in major-league history—the world did take notice for a moment …and that’s something baseball hasn’t made us do for a bit. And that’s something the game might not do, not in that way, again.

I’d like to think of Jeter as this kind of Alpha Male we either want to be or don’t admit that we want to be which makes us want to be him all the more. The Jeets in a $9k suit with a watch worth more than your mortgage tucked into a red leather booth. An array of empty glasses and bottles in front of him. The crowd blurs in his orbit. Plates cleared, tablecloth festively rumpled. Maybe a girl or two slinking next to him in sequins, purely ornamental. His eyes wide and aware. The bartender makes a vodka martini—the real kind. Chilled glass, a splash of Pernod and a swirl around the edges. He dumps the liquid garnish out. He gives the frosty shaker a couple more turns and pours the pristine toxin in. He lights a match with a thumb and squeezes the rind. The lemon oil ignites for a hot split second and the vapor melts into the glass. Jeter watches as the drink is brought his way from the bar, every step. It is set in front of him.

The Captain looks to his left and to his right. He doesn’t bother to take a sip. Instead he stares straight on, into the night and beyond. Now he’s there with the rest of us, in plain clothes. For a moment it feels nice. Then the next moment, it feels like things will never be the same again.

Pints and Picks Week 4: No bye week for bad bets

Each week DPB’s Kyle Magin and Andrew J. Pridgen will pour on the prose with Pints and Picks™. Who to wager and what to drink while doing it. Here then, is their point-counterpoint for Sept 27, 2014. Or, if you’re in the car, simply scroll down for the recap (they may be verbose, but it’s better than clicking through a slideshow).

AJ: Kyle, why are there bye weeks in college football? I mean, I get why they’re there in the NFL—basically an opportunity to get arrested in the club and for the league to fuck with fantasy owners who deserve to be fucked with. But there’s no reason for this in college other than maybe to see what FCS campus gets the biggest spike in date rape and frat house electronics raids over the idle weekend.

I only ask this because bye weeks in college used to not exist and now that they do, it brings an even bigger air of “professionalism” (air quotes) and indentured servitude to the amateur gridiron ranks. If the NCAA said, “We schedule bye weeks around midterms because academics” I’d be good with that. Happy even. But the real reason is to stretch out the post-season and turn college football into a 20-week endeavor (i.e. almost two-thirds the academic year) for the almighty bottom line—of which the athletes themselves see not a penny (and that’s where the lap top thefts come in).

Since you’re pretty good about finding out the why of things the way I’m good at identifying the season of Magnum PI (and episodes) where he tries to track down the ghost of his allegedly deceased wife, let me know if you know.

Otherwise, I take it now that you’re off the schneid you’re not taking a bye this week.

Me, I’m still trying to feel this week out like a Junior High dance. There’s no match up that stands out as a stone cold lock; and it has to be watchable to be (not a word: betable). <-One of my cardinal rules—the other is to never trust a Yelp reviewer whose mouth is wide open on their profile photo.

For now, a couple quick comments:

• Why is Wyoming traipsing around the country in pursuit of getting bitch-slapped? Is it like an anything-is-better-than-staying-home-and-risk-getting-shot-in-the-face-by-Dick-Cheney thing? First Oregon and now Michigan State? It kind of reminds me of those Pat Hill-era Fresno State teams which burned through their Southwest miles to go get rolled up by the SEC and ACC and Big-10 before limping back to the parched Valley and dominating, um, Wyoming …and most of the rest of the Mountain West. To be fair, Wyoming does have a slightly guttier squad than they originally got credit for (think corn snow-fed defense) and should give Sparty fits for at least a quarter or two. If you can get a first-half prop bet for the Cowboys at +10 or above, that’s better odds than your drunk-as-fuck out-of-town guest trying to pull a credit card advance on the gaming floor.

• Missouri on the road at South Carolina getting only 6.5. The Gamecocks are hotter than a rescue pit mix locked in a ’93 Aerostar in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly since forgetting Manziel was in the NFL and dropping their opener against Texas A&M. The Cocks have won three straight and Missouri is reeling from what should’ve amounted to a midweek January stumble on the hardcourt to the Hoosiers at home last week. Can Mizzou regroup or will South Carolina’s Mike Davis and Brandon Wilds harass QB Maty Mauk who already has four ints to go with 14 teeders …and, you know what, this spread sucks. Fuck this game.

…I’m going to pause right there and say I was running some errands with a buddy during the lunch hour today (he’s planning a birthday party for a one-year-old which basically means crappy burgers, a weird sheet cake that is actually just flypaper with white frosting and a couple of fifths because apparently one is too young to remember seeing your folks and their friends black out) and we ended up at Costco. Still $1.50 for a polish and a soda.

The thing is, we were the only sub-octagenarains dining there. All these Burns-postured McMurphys who’d escaped from “Serene Gardens” next door were gumming on these intestines and entrails pressed into a tube while gangsta leaning off their Rascals made me wonder: Do the old folks know something I don’t? Like, If I have one meal left, it’s gotta be Costco (because it is glorious, especially when you remember to ask for the slaw) or does it just kill a lot of time to try to gum down a dog the size of your shriveled and veiny neck midday on a weekday when you’re at the station of life when time, quite literally, can’t go any slower—and yet, you don’t have much of it left.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, I just have a lot more questions than answers this week.

Kyle? You there? You still reading?

Kyle: AJ, the middle school dance analogy couldn’t be more apt. I have an overwhelming urge to skip this week completely and tell all of our readers I was off doing some really cool stuff. In reality, I’ll probably be reading Madeleine L’Engle and trying to stay up for MadTV and hope my father (who, coincidentally, is visiting this weekend) doesn’t come out and turn it off when they swear for like the only time in the whole show.

MadTV featured the stylings of Michael McDonald (not this one, not that one, this one), a USC alum, and that’s my segue into talking about one of the only games that probably matter this weekend. With no ranked matchups, it’s going to be interesting to watch Oregon State-SC (-9) in the sense that it’ll be interesting to see your neighbor walk out the door with his 14-year-old dog tomorrow. Hey, still on the right side of the dirt, eh Fido?

The 2-1 Trojans are a technically, I suppose, still in the playoff race. Stanford exposed SC’s inability to get anything done in the red zone with a run game that’s hampered when it doesn’t have room to breath in a game the Trojans won 13-10. Boston College pantsed SC’s run defense in a 37-31 victory on Chestnut Hill. Both of these tell me the men of Troy aren’t yet sound in their line play. Mike Riley’s Beavers aren’t very good at running the ball on aggregate—they’re 91st in rushing in the nation—but in the first quarter, few offenses are as effective at running and passing the ball as 3-0 Oregon State, who put up more points early (10.5) than every other team in the Pac 12 North. If they can kick the Trojans’ line in the teeth early, I think OSU Quarterback Sean Mannion can play keep-up with a very potent SC passing attack.

Surveying the rest of the college football landscape leaves that bye week to be desired.

American Conference favorite Cincinnati visits Ohio State as a 15.5-point dog, and that’s halfway intriguing. Looking at the rest of this schedule is sort of like looking at the area surrounding Charleton Heston after that ship crashed in the first Planet of the Apes. Guess we’ll have to get walking.

AJ: Kyle, nice call on bringing the pops to town during the week of bettors doldrums. Now, instead of sitting indoors and inhaling the second-hand smoke of the sports book, the two of you can ramble around the Sierras inhaling the first-hand smoke of arsonists.

I think we agree this is a trap week as far as NCAA wagering goes. None of the spreads seem at all enticing and, as you pointed out, the dearth of compelling matchups (besides conference-centric spoiler games like Stanford at U-Dub) make this the week to take a BCS breather—and set the crosshairs on October baseball.

Namely Mr. Magin, the prospect of four very disparate and very under-(over?)achieving-for-different-reasons West Coast franchises making it to the playoffs.

It’s a Freaky Friday moment for baseball West of Lovelock. You’ve got the perennial lovable A’s who went out and made a splash at the trade deadline, only to wallow in the second half like so much locker room sludge through the AL West with dead arms and a listless clubhouse en route to a wildcard berth.

You have the predictably unpredictable Giants across the bridge who had a fiery start and a nine-game lead in May only to lose two-time world champion aces Matt Cain from the starting five (still unknown injury) and Tim Lincecum (still undiagnosed velocity problems) but somehow picked up where Oakland left off and went not with the big trades but with the white-flag youth movement: Hunter Strickland, Chris Hesten, Erik Cordier and even skipper’s son Brett Bochy have all contributed on the mound. Back-up backstop Andrew Susac has been clutch off the bench and in spelling Buster Posey and infielders Joe Panik and Matt Duffy have been key contributors plugging the middle whilst performing at the plate. The suddenly youth-infused G-men didn’t have enough in the tank to catch the boys in blue with the quarter-billion-dollar payroll and the world’s greatest stadium, but they do have a good chance of beating the Pirates in the wildcard sudden-death scenario and finding themselves the object of Joe Buck’s scorn again.

In Southern California, it’s a battle of swollen payrolls and depleting expectations. The Halos, who had all but given up on The Last Investment Albert Pujols till he decided to come out of the orange groves and hit a respectable .273 with 28 bombs and 104 RBIS (and he’s not done yet). Mike Trout is baseball’s lone superstar right now and the singing cowboy’s starting rotation featuring innings eaters Jared Weaver (18-8, 3.52 ERA), CJ Wilson (13-10, 4.61 ERA) and Matt Shoemaker (16/4, 3.04 ERA) suddenly looks like baseball’s best even without the services of Garrett Richards (13-4, 2.61 ERA). The hedge fund-backed Dodgers’ have the best pitcher in baseball in Clayton Kershaw. The once-in-a-generation starter-next-door has mastery of three pitches usually thrown in a way three different pitchers might; fastball, 90-plus, a makes-you-swing-from-the-heels slider in the high-80s and an elevator curve in the mid-70s. It’s like facing vintage Barry Zito, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddox—in one at-bat. Kershaw recently notched his 20th win, has an ERA under 1.80 and tosses 100-pitch complete game shutouts like Drysdale the get away afternoon after a Saturday night bender. Kershaw alone almost makes one forget that any player who came up under Castro thinks hitting the cut-off man is a Fredo Corleone reference.

You got your Tigs Kyle, but the prospect of not only an all West Coast World series, but LCSs makes me giggle. I know Fox shares Erin Andrews’ resting bitchface scowl when it comes to the knowledge that KC, not NY will be in the playoffs and Mr. Jeter’s farewell bonanza is but a week away from coming to a cleaned-out-locker and teary press conference halt. All that historic footage from the pre-device ’90s shelved for roll out at Cooperstown in 2020. And what the fuck will Ken “He shoulda been-a dentist” Rosenthal talk about as Buck cuts Harold Reynolds off on the cutaways with no DJ?

With that, I’d like to be a sort of World Series wager Sommelier. First off, like a fine wine, many teams age into BETTER odds of winning Bud Selig’s final Commissioner’s Trophy as the season matures. But like your great aunt’s Bradford Exchange plate collection, not all teams go up in value. At the start of the season the last-place Red Sox were 12/1 (ditto Rays). The aforementioned Yankees, who are now 300/1 to take a Champagne bath, started out at 14/1. The Orioles who started the season at 35/1 are now 13/2—not bad for a runaway division champ. And your Motor City hardballers are a solid 6/1. For my money though, I’m liking either the A’s or the Giants at 12/1 to bring the hardware back to the Biggedy. After all, Giants fans, it is an even-numbered year.

Kyle, I know you’re headed out the door to see nature’s splendor with the man who pulled you out of oblivion and plopped you on this big blue-infused chunk of spinning granite, but I KNOW you’re laying down your World Series picks this week… so, (Pacino voice) what’dya got?!

Kyle: AJ, I’ve never been more happy to talk baseball during betting season, a sport I usually avoid at the book like the plague. It will also grease the wheels of conversation with the old man while we’re waiting for his knees to stabilize after I drag him up a few thousand feet above his normal playing altitude.

I, too, think the road to the World Series is definitely coming through California. Too many hardball-related planets are aligning with the Golden State. Dave Stewart is LaRussa’s new lapdog in Arizona. Scully is back again next year! I found out, just this week, that they still have an MLB team in San Diego.

As a Tigers fan, I hate to say it, but the Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland at 9/2 to win the series is the best bet at the book. Jeff Weaver is a horse, Matt Shoemaker has walked one guy for every 9 he’s struck out since the break and Wade Leblanc hasn’t given up a run in his last two starts headed into the postseason. Everybody has been getting on in front of Albert Pujols and he’s been driving all of them in—he’s got roughly an RBI per game over the last month, while Mike Trout continues to ape Barry Bonds with his slugging prowess. Gordon Beckham and Howie Kendrick have gotten on-base as often as anyone in the league over the last month. There’s just no way I see someone getting around this time save some massive power outage from Pujols and Trout.

In the NL—and I know this won’t be popular with much of our readership—I like the Dodgers. I don’t love them at 9/5, but in the “who’s going to win this thing” sense, I think we’re geared up for a freeway series. Which, wow, Randy Newman is going to RAKE royalties from FOX. It’ll make Erin’s Dancing with the Stars schedule manageable—I won’t have to put up with her whiny-ass Instagram posts from a private jet about #grinding from coast to coast.

We’ll get some hoity-toity reminders from the New Yorker about all the poor-ass people who got bulldozed out of Chavez Ravine 60-plus years ago to make way for one of the top-five stadiums in baseball. It’ll be gross and engrossing, all at once.

The Dodgers’ Matt Kemp, Justin Turner, Carl Crawford and Scott Van Slyke have been hitting the living shit out the ball over the last month—all four are in the top-15 of OPS over that stretch. Even with Puig’s second-half power outage, I don’t see how anyone else keeps up with the boys in blue. Selig passes out his last trophy south of the Grapevine.

AJ: Gotta agree it may be Los Doyers’ year and hey that Randy Newman song was supposed to be ironic; like how big a shithole-where-small-town-dreams-go-to-die-with-a-gooey-tarpit-center LA is. It makes me laugh every time the Dodgers notch a W and it bounces off the Hollywood sign and into the night. I love it! I love it! I love it!

Oh, yeah, the Huskies are better than David Shaw’s listless and unproven farm squad. Take the dawgs and the 6 points against the Cardinal (at home!) for a share of the Pac-12 North lead.

The PnP Recap:

Last week:
AJ: 3-3
Kyle: 1-2

Overall:
AJ: 8-12
Kyle: 1-7

This week:
AJ:
• Washington +6 vs. Stanford
• SF Giants (or Oakland A’s) at 12/1 to win the World Series

Kyle:
• Oregon State +12.5 @ USC
• LA Dodgers (9/5) or LA Angels (9/2) to win the World Series

Sing it

We’re past baseball’s All Star Game and headed into the stretch run for the 15ish teams with a shot at the playoffs. The perfect time for a musical interlude. Here then, a theme song for every contender within spitting distance of their division or a wild card berth as they push toward October:

AL East

Baltimore Orioles—Puddle of Mudd “She Hates Me”
With 68 games remaining, the Orioles’ first 23 are against plus-.500 clubs, including a post-All Star-break run against the AL West’s top tier. They’re four games up in a shitty division, so it’s not all bad, but the MLB’s schedule-maker truly hates the Os.

Toronto Blue Jays—Madeline Khan “I’m Tired”
The Jays set the AL East on fire through June, leading the division for 48 straight games at one point. But after bumbling to an 8-17 finish before the break, can’t you see this team is tired? Injuries, catcher Josh Thole’s rag doll, please-steal-second arm and a suddenly quiet offense mean Toronto is basically kaput.

New York Yankees—Jay Z “Fade to Black”
Like Jay’s overwrought retirement tour with the Black Album, Yankee Shortstop Derek Jeter’s bloated farewell will be sweetest when it finally ends, probably in September. No more tips of the cap to someone “classy” enough to stay with the one organization willing to overpay for his talents for two decades. No more giddily scribbled Valentine soft-focus tributes from men 20 years his senior on Fox broadcasts. The Yanks are five games behind Baltimore in the division and 3.5 behind in the wild card yet they’re sucking air with ace pitcher Masahiro Tanka sidelined for at least a month with arm trouble. Unless every opposing pitcher in the league decides to groove throw Jeter belt-high fastballs the rest of the season, we can finally kiss the last vestige of the 90s Yankees goodbye.

AL Central

Detroit Tigers—George Thorogood and the Destroyers “I Drink Alone”
Yeah, with nobody else. In the Central, the Tigers essentially drink alone. Their successes and failures are entirely dependent on a world-class offense, potential-packed, results-stunted staff and manic bullpen. They’re 22-16 versus the rest of their middling-to-terrible division and during a month stretch in May and June excelled tremendously at beating themselves without assistance from opposing clubs. This is their division to lose.

Kansas City Royals—Smokey Robinson “Tracks of My Tears”
Nobody made heartbreak nearly as fun (and danceable!) as Smokey did in this classic track. The Royals are trying to duplicate the effort. They had the Tigers by the tail, literally, going 2 games up at one point in the first half before looking down for what seemed like 10 seconds and then looking up to see themselves in a 6.5 game hole. Their pitching is fantastically broken and third baseman Mike Moustakas, while certainly Greek, is far from a god, hitting .219 with runners on.

Cleveland Indians—Weird Al Yankovic “Close but no Cigar”
Like Weird Al’s love interest, the Indians have a lot of good things going for them. All-Star outfielder Michael Brantley has a .901 OBP and has already knocked in 63 runs. Lonnie Chisenhall is finally getting a chance to play a rock-solid third base full-time and is a monster at the plate. From afar, the Tribe looks like a hottie. But the staff is riddled with some penicillin-resistant disease, and aside from Chisenhall the infield handles grounders with all the care of frozen McRibs in the back of your local gut bomb factory.

AL West

Oakland Athletics—ACDC “For Those about to Rock (We Salute You)”
Stand up and be counted for what you are about to receive/we are the dealers/we’ll give you everything you need.
Noted asshole and Oakland owner Lew Wolff and destitute man’s Brad Pitt Billy Beane have given A’s fans what they need to succeed in the AL and possibly all of baseball this year. For with the addition of Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel from the Cubs, the A’s are ready to rock into the postseason. They’ve now the pitching to complement bats like Josh Donaldson (20 HR and 65 RBI) and Brandon Moss (21 HR, 66 RBI) on a staff that was already 23 games above .500. The ALCS will go through Oakland.

Anaheim Angels—Aretha Franklin “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”
What’s a team gotta do to turn some heads in the AL West? The Angels are 1.5 games behind the A’s—the best team in baseball—and are in the process of reanimating the corpse of Josh Hamilton, who helped key a five-game winning streak heading into the break. Mike Trout continues to play like baseball Jesus with his 22 HR and 73 RBI and Albert Pujols is slugging a full hundred points higher than the league average while smacking 20 HR to this point. Garrett Richards and CJ Wilson are strikeout machines—the A’s take their foot off the gas at their own peril.

NL West

Los Angeles Dodgers—Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train”
The Dodgers are probably (definitely) going off the rails at some point in the second half, they’ll just do it in a spectacular manner. Clayton Kershaw and Zach Grienke will do their best to keep the engine chugging what with their 12 and 10 Ks per game, respectively, while Yasiel Puig and Dee Gordon continue to play some of the best defense in baseball. But here’s Josh Beckett blowing out just before the break, and there’s Puig’s power numbers barely matching Gordon’s over the last two months, and here’s Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford notching just 30 HR between them, and Donny Baseball’s negative reinforcement can only work so many times. The explosion will be epic.

San Francisco Giants—Charlie Murphy (as Stinky) “F*ck It”
What else do you say when you cough up a 9.5 game lead in the course of a month? The Giants hang their offense on catcher Buster Posey, who has hung Kurt Suzuki-lite numbers this summer—his .378 slugging percentage trails the league. There’s a core concept misunderstanding when your middle-of-the-order slugger is hitting like a 7-holer, leading a team-wide power outage from Memorial Day onward. Madison Bumgarner strikes out nearly everyone but seems to walks the rest and Matt Cain’s every venture beyond the 5th inning is tantamount to swimming off the Farallons with an open wound.  Tim Lincecum is coming back nicely with four strong starts before the break, though, and Hunter Pence continues to play like his hair is on fire. A devil-may-care attitude could catch the Dodgers.

NL Central

Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Cincinatti Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates—Al Green “Let’s Stay Together”
The entire Central, save the Cubs (I wasted time typing that second clause and typing this explanation) is locked in a race for the division championship. Pittsburgh is the furthest back at 3.5 games, and since June they’ve been baseball’s hottest team right alongside the Reds. The Brewers imploded, losing 10 of 11, just before the break while the Cards surged. If for no other reason than arguments over who brews the best shitty domestic beer and whose stadium looks best astride a strip-mine befouled river, these four need to stay close together ‘til the bitter end.

NL East

Washington Nationals—Eminem “Talkin’ 2 Myself”
But instead of feeling sorry for yourself do something ‘bout it/ admit you got a problem/ your brain is clouded/ you pouted long enough/ it isn’t them it’s you you fucking baby/ quit worrying about what they do and do Shady Nats’ outfielder needs to take Eminem’s post-addiction words to heart while trying to get back into the groove after a pretty rotten (by his lofty standards) first half. Harper logged just 137 plate appearances and missed much of the season’s first stanza due to injury. Since he’s been back, he can’t seem to find his stride at the plate, and being the Nats’ sole source of power from the left side of the plate (other lefty regulars combined for 13 HRs in the first half), that’s a big problem. He strikes out roughly a third of the time for an injury-ravaged team that has managed a first-place tie with the Braves through this point of the season. Cut those numbers down and turn on the power and “the new me’s back to the old me” and you’ll see Washington in October.

Atlanta Braves –Warren G. Feat Nate Dogg “Regulate”
The Braves’ anemic offense desperately needs some handy bat to step in and regulate. BJ Upton, Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, Anyone, Bueller, Bueller…? A stellar bullpen and a workhorse group of starters are begging for somebody besides catcher Evan Gattis and outfielder Justin Upton—who have a quarter of the team’s HRs and RBIs combined—to literally step up to the plate.

The South Side Secret

Chicago White Sox captain Paul Konerko appears to be as recognizable to baseball fans as Roger Waters is to One Direction fans.

As Derek Jeter conducts his farewell tour to pomp and fanfare, packing the stands in the home parks of traditional rivals like the …Houston Astros… Konerko plays out the string in the witness protection program that is his career in New Comiskey, or whatever global telecommunications Park we’re supposed to call it today*.

Frank Thomas dominated talk around the team in Konerko’s early years with the organization during the late-90s and early 2000s.

Amid his World Series-winning season of 2005, more attention focused on the Sox’s improbably successful staff and firebrand manager Ozzie Guillen than on the steady slugging first baseman/DH.

Konerko, 38, has been to six all-star games, has a World Series ring and an ALCS MVP award.

He’s hit 100-plus RBIs six times and blasted 30-plus homeruns seven times.

He took a team to a championship that hadn’t been there since the Wilson administration.

But events have conspired to relegate him to the back pages of history even as he continues to play — to South Side of Chicago fame rather than national fame.

Maybe Konerko’s vanilla. He’s been married to the same lady for a decade. His most notable off-field feat is being a Rhode Island native of some national stature.

He played in a particularly forgettable World Series sweep of the Astros on a team in one of baseball’s least talked-about divisions. It’s particularly unfortunate given that breaking the White Sox 88-year World Series drought would’ve been a bigger national story had a slightly shorter streak not been broken the year before amidst a northeastern media blizzard.

His team plays second fiddle in its own town, despite producing a far-better on-field product.

He’s lived in the shadows of great names who outlasted their on-field usefulness — Thomas, Jim Thome and Adam Dunn — and always been the one to carry his glove out to first while they waited for the DH spot to come up again.

Put Konerko on almost any other team — certainly any other big-market winner — and he’d be a rich man’s Mike Lowell. Andre Ethier with actualized talent. …Or Ryan Howard sans the massive hole in his swing.

His crowning achievement was a two-out go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning of game two of the 2005 World Series. Mookie Wilson remains a household name for hitting an infield single in a series, Rick Ankiel for failing to throw a strike in an NLCS.

Konerko ranks somewhere lower than that in baseball’s collective conscious despite a performance that’s only a slight variation from the one you dreamed about in your backyard as a 7-year old.

To put a cherry on his plain vanilla sundae of a career, Konerko is spending his last season finding an at-bat here and there behind Jose Abreu, the White Sox’ white-hot Cuban defector first baseman.

Maybe the numbers will one day vindicate his memory to fans as a whole, but they probably won’t. Relative anonymity will probably be his life sentence, and those who did appreciate his production should give the old slugger a tip of the cap as he rides (pine) off into the sunset.

*Yes, that’s a link to Disco Demolition Night …a little Old Comiskey tribute.