MLB’s wildcard has teams dying to avoid it

Why wildcard entrants in a one-game system instead of a series is baseball’s best idea.

By Kyle Magin

Stephen Piscotty almost died trying to avoid the MLB wildcard game by expressly not avoiding his teammate. The Cardinals outfielder dove into fellow outfielder Peter Borjous’ knee in an attempt to corral a Pittsburgh Pirates’ pop-fly on Monday and went down in a lump of limbs and leather. He needed to be carted off the field in PNC Park before a raucous crowd that was stunned into silence. Thankfully, it looks like he’ll be OK.

But the mere fact that a player on a first-place team assured of a playoff spot this late in the season almost committed baseball harakiri on the field is all the validation anyone needs of the value of the sport’s 2012 decision to add a second wildcard game. It deserves a damn monument for what it’s done to the final weeks of a season. (Minus, of course, the injuries.)

Nothing motivates one of the two best teams in baseball to secure that No. 1 spot in its division like the threat of having to play a one game playoff, where your fate is left to the awful chance that necessitates playoff series and, frankly, a 162-game season. Baseball necessarily elongates everything to even out the divots normal gameplay causes on an everyday basis:

The Phillies beat the Cubs in 5 out of 7 tries.

Rando No. 8 hitters who’ll never again see the big leagues have slugged dingers off of Zack Grienke.

Don Mattingly manages to execute a double-switch once in a blue moon without stabbing himself with the lineup pencil.

Shit happens.

That’s why you do anything to avoid leaving your season—your back-breaking labor over 162 games—to the randomness and chance a one-game series will subject you to. It’s why subjecting wildcard entrants to a one-game system instead of a series is baseball’s best idea.

That idea has recently produced the best baseball on the planet.

The Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs (to a slightly lesser extent) have been circling each other like three Battle Royale participants on Bum Fights. Three-to-four games have separated the trio from one another for the past month, when they’ve contested 20 games against one another. The Cardinals will probably come out the winners if only because players like Piscotty dove for balls they could have let drop when they knew only homefield advantage in a 5-game series was on the line under the old single-wildcard format. They’ve won because guys like catcher Yadier Molina have contested a play at the plate against the Cubs—hurting his thumb in doing so—to secure wins over divisional opponents. The Pirates will come up short due to no lack of effort, as will the Cubs, who have been led on a crazy mission to try to capture the pennant by starting pitcher Jake Arrieta and his 4 earned runs in the last 61 days.

If that isn’t enough for you, look at the race for the second AL wildcard, currently being contested between the West’s leading Texas Rangers, the Houston Astros (who led that division for most of the season), the Anaheim Angels and Minnesota Twins—currently trailing in the clubhouse at a whopping 1.5 games back as of Tuesday night. The Rangers are desperately trying to hold off the Astros now after coming back from 9 down in the divisional race on July 20. The Astros are doing anything they can to avoid a one-gamer with the wild card-leading Yankees in New York or a nightmare scenario 4-way tie that would have them playing in Phoenix Sunday to end the regular season, Texas on Monday, Houston on Tuesday, New York on Wednesday and Toronto or Kansas City on Thursday. Potentially three time zones and two countries in five straight days. Fuck that.

The Angels are doing their best to take a match to all of this like the little sadist on your childhood block. They’re playing .770 baseball over the past two weeks and Mike Trout is doing one helluva Vince Carter impression leaping over walls in a bid to win the division or even just win that last playoff spot. The Twins would like to crash the party just to splatter some blood on the wall. The Rangers are playing the worst ball of the bunch at .600. It’s been terrific to watch and has to be absolutely exhausting to participate in.

The quest to get out of the wildcard—or to win the second spot; not an option until four seasons ago—is producing a batshit crazy end of the MLB season that’s more baseball heaven than any cornfield in Iowa or sun-soaked spring training facility. I hope this violent, absurd car-chase of a fortnight never ends.

Pints and Picks The Podcast: Episode 2 – Now that’s pod racing!

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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.

How the 2014 MLB All-Star Game got Blue Crushed®

Invariably and almost irrevocably, every time I start to feel a little bored agitated by a sporting event of great import (the NBA Finals, the NHL Playoffs, the Super Bowl, the Valero Alamo Bowl …the PDC Darts Championship) I find myself scanning through the 700 channels.

And I find Blue Crush is on premium cable.

Blue Crush vs. Major Sporting Event happens so often I’ve developed a Countdown to Switching Over to Blue Crush Point Deduction System™ (works especially well on Fox broadcasts).

Every major sporting event starts with 100 poitns. If it falls below 50, I’m allowed to watch Blue Crush until Faizon Love’s ‘Da nah nah naaah’ scene. If the score falls below 25, I’m allowed to watch Blue Crush through the one-night-stand with the Pro Bowl quarterback scene. If the score falls to zero (or below), I’m “forced” to watch Blue Crush through the closing credit gag reel.

Them’s the rules.

In other words, once enough points have been deducted from said sporting event’s watchability, it has officially been declared: Blue Crushed®.

It’s not that Blue Crush is the most special movie in the world*, it’s that, well, for my two-something hours of time invested, I get more enjoyment out of azure shots of Kate Bosworth fetching rocks from the bottom of the ocean back before she was all red lips, elbows and knee caps.

Below, my Point Deduction System (pat. pending) —or—how a sporting event can lose enough steam for me to switch over to BC quicker than you can say: “What do I want? Oh my god, I want Penny to quit smoking and go to college. I want, I want to be able to pay the phone, electric and rent in the same month. I want a girl to be on the cover of Surf magazine. It would be great if that girl were me, but any girl would do. I want… I mean I wish my mom would come home, and I really, really want to win Pipe Masters tomorrow, that’s what I want.”

Note: Each sporting event has its own unique set of “rules” that can also be easily modified to suit a drinking game, albeit, with baseball it’s never good to devise a drinking game with Joe Buck in the booth. You’ll be more blacked out than Dodger fans by the third inning.

On the occasion of the 2014 All-Star Game in Minnesota Tuesday night, the game’s first pitch was at 4:27 p.m. PST. As luck would have it, Blue Crush was starting on HBO West at 5 p.m.

By 5:13 p.m., the Point Deduction System enabled me to permanently click over just in time for Anne Marie, Eden, and Lena to get worked at Pipe in front of the locals before scurrying around the Ihilani Resort & Spa at Ko Olina in their hottest-maids-ever outfits.

• Joe Buck expectorates just prior to or after commercial break because he’s a beat off: -3

• Joe Buck makes dated pop culture reference that he tries to pass off as relevant (“This Cuban’s defection was a bigger game-changer than when Ted Danson started dating Whoopi.”) -5

• Joe Buck disapproves of players’ facial hair by making crass joke, “he’s a great hitter and an inspiration for all the homeless i step over when I’m in Oakland.” “I bet he’s the kind of people you see on public transit.”: -5

• Joe Buck admits to never enjoying any destination Southwest flies or any state that isn’t mostly buoyed by corn subsidies: -3

• Erin Andrews starts asking too-long questions like she’s in the “Is there anything you want to know about us” portion of a job interview: -4

• Erin Andrews tries to manufacture Richard Sherman emotion out of completely mundane moments and falling disarmingly short: “What were your thoughts when you were pulled with two runners on and nobody out?” A:”My thought was it’s the All-Star Game. It was nice to be out there and have fun, I guess.” -5

• …Erin Andrews doing it all in a first-job interview blazer: -6

• Longer-than-dinner in-game interview with (fill in blank of retiring Yankee here) runs over a key pitching change, the go-ahead run being scored, a wild pitch or use (or conspicuous non-use) of baseball’s replay. Nobody in the booth seems to mind.

• Fox teases to the “New Star of Sunday Nights” which is a sitcom knock-off of Two Broke Girls. (side note: why can’t anyone do a bad knock-off of Alf. it would stand to reason that it’s time for puppets—jewish alien puppets—to make a comeback. -12

• Speaking of Jewish Alien Puppets, Ken Rosenthal: -8

• Ken Rosenthal tries to evoke Costas by referencing Roberto Clemente when talking to anyone in a Pirates uniform: -4

• Troy Tulowitzki walks up to The Sign, by Ace of Base: +20

• Shot of animatronic Bud Selig: -4

• Shot of Mr. Burns and animatronic Selig sitting in same box: plus 38

• Joe Buck regales audience with stories of Selig’s tenure as commissioner but fails to mention ownership collusion, being complicit with the PED/Steroid era to save job post-strike but prosecuted it to the fullest extent of federal law when the tide of public opinion turned; then being complicit with it again; the 2002 all star game (ended in tie: his call), the World Baseball Classic; the amount he’s profited by his own policies as still-owner (shhhhh) of the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club (in spite of fake ownership transfer to his daughter and fake sale to Mark Attanasio); racketeering charges Selig faced for trying to contract the league and get rid of the Twins (leaving the Midwest market open for Brewers business only) in 2001; earning at least $14 million/year as commissioner for pretty much making it job one to screw the Astros and the A’s at every turn (strangely to the benefit of the Brewers, see: 2008 Playoffs): -12 (for each)

I guess assigning such high point totals to the omission of commissioner Selig’s transgressions in this, Melty Ice Cream Face’s last All Star Game, weighed the programming a little in Blue Crush’s favor.

Then again, it was a wholly more satisfying experience watching Anne Marie’s luau meltdown than the alternative: witnessing live the horror of the DH getting home field in this fall’s Fall Classic because Mike Trout hit a chopper up the line that third baseman Aramis Ramirez thought was foul ignored and didn’t make a play on.

Trout was MVP for that almost-hit that didn’t get replayed in the era of replay.

…But Anne Marie took home the quarterback, caught a monster wave at Pipe, got signed by Billabong AND scored the cover of Surf magazine.

*Blue Crush may not be the best movie in the world but it’s the best movie in the world directed by Cougar from Top Gun who looks like he landed on his feet after turning in his wings.

Dispatches from the 2013 Winter Baseball Talks

Lake Buena Vista, Florida

One of the last transactions of import during baseball’s boozy four-day bacchanal (Dec. 9-12), before its scouts/execs and PR lackeys plunk down with family-types for the holidays, was the Texas Rangers’ invoking the Rule 5 draft to pick up Seattle Seahawks’ QB Russell Wilson from Colorado.

Think of it as the Rangers’ biggest coup since they were able to offload GM George W. Bush (he traded Sammy Sosa and Wilson Alvarez to the Chisox for Harold Baines, remember?) into the Texas governor’s office and beyond. Wilson, 25, an erstwhile second basemen with a Rockies’ Class A affiliate, is the quarterback the playoff-starved greater Dallas area has been Jonesing (get it?) for for more than a decade.

The Seahawks’ snap taker was not given a spot on the Rockies’ 40-man roster whereby he was plucked by Texas which used MLB’s “hot stove” league rule that allows teams on the last day of winter talks to take fliers on the long-shot prospects left unprotected.

The premium of an All-Pro in the MLB is apparently way off since the Bo Jackson/Deion Sanders days as the Rockies let Wilson go to Arlington for 12 grand or about the cost of a 2011 Hyundai Accent.

Also coming on the heels of the Floridian getaway for GMs, a threat to Major League Baseball’s control of its own teams’ boundaries.

Control that is so hermetic it took a federal judge Friday to allow the city of San Jose to pursue in a federal appeals court its lawsuit against the MLB for the cash-strapped A’s move to the South Bay. Such a move would actually mark the first time ever someone goes from renting out by the airport in Oakland to moving into a brand-new home near Los Gatos.

The Athletics front office said they’re a perfect match for the venture capital-rich Silicon Valley as a product that performs well when nobody is looking but consistantly fails when users actually flock to it.

In October, San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte upheld Major League Baseball’s right to determine when and where franchises may relocate but the countersuit filed by the city of San Jose against MLB alleges that antitrust laws had been violated over a proposed move of the Oakland Athletics to the largest city in the affluent Silicon Valley; the federal judge concurred and was seen tweeting about it using his new iPad Air Friday.

MLB commissioner Bud Selig said the issue is one of the “loose ends” he hopes to resolve before he retires in January 2015. Other loose ends include: Marrying (impregnating and divorcing) a Kardashian, attempting to watch all three Matrix movies back-to-back-to-back without having to pee once …or to simply “get through them”, relaunching healthcare.gov as a porn site “so people actually use it” and admitting he didn’t think anyone would still be watching when he let the All Star game end in a tie.

In a rare coup for the West Coast during the talks, the Seattle Mariners stole beloved Yankee Robinson Cano from pinstripes …for just under a quarter-billion dollars, or, in Dodgers terms, “the cost of a one-year lease of our fan base.”

The second baseman accepted a 10-year, $240-million offer from the Mariners earlier in the week which is approximately one non-fat Venti Frappuccino no whip for every man woman and child in the greater Seattle area every Saturday for the next year and and change (74 weeks to be exact.)

Cano, not a coffee drinker, said his move to Seattle wasn’t just to see how much it would cost to have an Amazon drone deliver the actual Jennifer Lawrence to his door (though that was a factor) but because the Yankees only offered him $175 million. An amount he qualified at his first press conference in the Emerald City Thursday as disrespectful.

Yankees brass was predictably seething at losing at its own game: Offering too much money and too many years to infielders who will become injury prone or the subject of investigation toward the end of their careers.

“Every one of us in our life, no matter who you are, has a decision often to make: Do I stay where I am versus go to another opportunity for a lot of money?” Yankees president Randy Levine said Friday in a press conference introducing his new outfielder, reigning world champion Jocoby Ellsbury. “People understand that. That’s very reasonable. Nobody begrudges him. I respect him for making that decision.”

…In other words: That’s the last time a player not take money from the Yankees front office without their permission and not hear about it in a press conference about another player they took from a division rival for too much money.

Speaking of Levine, Major League Baseball said it plans to investigate the Yankee prez for comments he made about Angels’ All Star outfielder Mike Trout while discussing Cano’s leaving to see if they constitute tampering.

“If Mike Trout was here, I would recommend a 10-year contract,” he said Friday. “But for people over 30, I don’t believe it makes sense. We were very clear about that.”

Levine also confirmed that his Match profile only seeks women under 28 who haven’t been divorced or appeared on VH1 and then randomly, to break the awkward silence, asked whether “anyone else is as scared as I am of those new Ray Liotta 1800 Tequila ads?”

And finally, the Cleveland Indians may have made the biggest splash during the winter talks in signing first baseman David Cooper to a major league deal.

Cooper, 26, split last season between Triple-A Las Vegas and the Toronto Blue Jays where he went 42-for-140 (.300) and became the pride of the town best known for Pamela Anderson, Labatt’s and crack-smoking mayors before he went down in late August with a season ending back strain.

He will start in Triple-A Columbus and be the first option for the Tribe should Nick Swisher or Jason Giambi struggle. Cooper also said he’s amenable to playing in the outfield or changing his name to Eric Byrnes if that makes Swisher and Giambi more comfortable.