“•In 1999, fans jeered Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin as he lay on the field for 20 minutes, suffering from a neck injury that ended his career.
•That same year, fans threw D batteries at St. Louis Cardinals outfielder J.D. Drew, who held out for a year after the Phillies drafted him and eventually signed with the Cards instead.
•Matthew Scott, the only person in the United States to have received a hand transplant, was asked by the Phillies to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the team’s home opener in 1999. The pitch, from his transplanted hand, dribbled over the plate. The fans booed.
•Eagles fans famously blasted Santa Claus with a shower of snowballs at halftime of a game as St. Nick circled helplessly around the field before stadium officials rescued him.”

So they jeer a guy with a serious injury, assault a player on the field, boo a handicapped person, and pelted Santa.  Oh, and he forgot to mention the time they slashed a woman’s face for wearing a Cowboys jersey and that they continually murder each other.   Then they brag about these things, like it’s a point of civic pride.  So someone has to ask: Why?  Why do you do these things Philly?  Why are you so angry and violent?  Why can’t you control yourselves in public spaces?  Why is your entire city’s fan-base one giant unruly mob?  Please, someone speak up and try to explain why you can’t behave yourselves like decent human beings?

Seriously, though, Canada deserved to win.  Why?  Because they give a shit about hockey and their country would have collapsed in to complete anarchy if they didn’t win.  So, to celebrate their win, here is a picture of their national treasure, Sidney Crosby (the second-best hockey player in the world) rejoicing in his game-winning goal as only he, and other people who resemble donkeys, can.  Oh, Canada.

As is my wont, I’ll keep these on a drinking theme.

Game You Couldn’t Help But Slam 13 Beers During: Fair amount of candidates for this one, with the Kings blowing a four-goal lead last night but winning anyway, the Wild storming back from 3 down in the 3rd against the Mighty Mallards, Nikolai Khabibulin gifting the Flames two points.  But we have to go with Caps-Flyers last night, a 6-5 OT win for Philly.  Two of the most fascinating young players in the game, Ovie and professional bad-ass Mike Richards combined for five goals.  This was hair-on-fire stuff.  The Caps might be must-see TV this years, as they can fill the net with anybody but might get scored upon more than a drunken sorority girl who hates her father.  There’s going to be a lot of 4-3’s and 5-4’s in our nation’s capital.

A Free Beer For: Has to be Ovechkin.  Three points in every game this week.  Best player on the planet, and he plays the game like the weird kid in 3rd grade who kept trying to slide his hand up your ass-crack while gleefully screaming, “Credit Card!”.  Usually, that kid ends up wearing a helmet and just “goes away.”  Ovechkin still wears a helmet.

Making Excuses For Whiskey-Dick: This may be the only time I get to put them here this season, but it’s the Detroit Red Wings.  Forever blowing leads in two virtual home games in Sweden, and neither goalie looked impressive.  They’ll sort this out, they always do, but for now, we’re just going to enjoy it.  They’ll probably figure it out just in time to curb-stomp by beloved Hawks tomorrow night.

Meet Your Buddies At The Bar For: Pens-Flyers tomorrow night, Caps-Wings on Saturday night.

Right, this column will expand as we go, still finding my feet.  But that’s it for now…

Central Division

Chicago Blackhawks: Ah, my beloved Men of Four Feathers.  The Hawks offseason at times resembled a flaming short-bus, from biffing the offer sheets to their restricted free agents (which could have made them all unrestricted), to the signing of the prize of the free agency class, Marian Hossa, to him being hurt and then having his contract investigated, to the firing of a GM to Patrick Kane’s “unpleasantness”, but it’s all over thank God.  Now that it’s about what’s on the ice, the Hawks are the chic pick to take this conference, and I agree with that.  They’re loaded up front when Hossa returns in November, a blue line that boasts the best young pairing in the league – Marlboro 72 in Keith and Seabrook – and has just about as much depth as anyone.  There are two questions about the Hawks:  The first is in net, where it remains to be seen if they haven’t made themselves Flyers West and Huet will have to prove they haven’t, and the second is are they deep enough down the middle.  Toews/Bolland does not match up to Datsyuk/Zetterberg, Crosby/Malkin, Thornton/Pavelski even.  Do they enough wingers to overcome?  We think they do, and we’re totally biased.

Columbus Blue Jackets: The BJ’s were able to bore…I’m sorry, boar their way into the playoffs last year on the back of rookie of the year Steve Mason, and they’ll look to squeeze the life out of the sport back to the postseason again.  They may score more this season if Derick Brassard, who was off to a fantastic rookie campaign before injuring himself in a fight, stays healthy, but we don’t have enough of a sample size to know.  The Jackets have a look of a team that’s going to be exactly what they were, but other teams may have caught up.

Detroit Red Wings: Ah, the Evil Empire.  Have they finally taken enough hits in the offseason?  With Hossa, Hudler, and Samuelsson all walking, they’ve lost 80 goals from last season, and they weren’t exactly defensively sharp.  They’re a year older, and with this being an Olympic year, the core of this team — Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Lindstrom — will be playing 100+ games for the fifth straight season.  None of them don’t creak when they get out of bed in the morning, how much more can they take?  They look ripe for the picking, but we’ve said that before, and seeing as how the organization pumps everyone full of some sort of performance enhancer as soon as drafting them, expect rookies Darren Helm, Justin Abdelkader, and Ville Leino to become legends.  How, and Chris Osgood to campaign for the Hall of Fame some more.

Nashville Predators: Every year, when we can’t name more than three skaters on this team, we consign them to the basement.  But coach Barry Trotz — the first human ever to be cloned from a frog — has them in the thick of it until the end.  They’ll find a way to just barely miss out again.  Oh, and they’re fucking goal song of Billy Ray Cyrus’s “I Like It, I Love It” will drive every hockey fan up a wall.

St. Louis Blues: Last year’s feel good story, the Blues put on a rush at the end of the season as if they were told there’d be free beer to make the playoffs out of nowhere.  The Blues lost, approximately, 1,678 man games to injury last season, but return healthy.  They get back Erik Johnson, their former #1 pick d-man, who’ll have to go through all the growing pains he was supposed to go through last year, and aging vagina Paul Kariya — who’ll get hurt again anyway, but not so bad he can’t go cash his check.  But this team has a bevy of young, exciting players, and they should squeak in again.  Though last time a team tried Chris Mason as an unquestioned #1, he soiled himself somethin’ rotten.

Northwest Division

Calgary Flames: What happens when two Sutter brothers run a team?  Lots of jokes referencing the Bob Newhart Show, which no one gets.  Anyway, after getting bounced pretty easily in the first round by the Hawks, the Flames fired Stalin-impersonator Mike Keenan and replaced him with the GM’s brother.  The Flames tried to score with teams last year, and that didn’t take, so now they’re going to try and shut them out.  They brought in prized-defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, who does what Dion Phaneuf was supposed to do.  Other than Iginla, where this team is going to score is just beyond me.  One day, Iggy is going to get a top-echelon center playing with him again, and I hope it’s not too late for him to put up 60 goals, because he could do it.  Iggy is the best player in the league, and best guy, that no one knows about.  It’s been that way for far too long.

Colorado Avalanche: Rocky Mountain Rebuilding…Colorado!

Edmonton Oilers: The place where no one knows your name, because no one f#cking goes there.  Dany Heatley was the latest to turn down the chance, and now the Oilers have to make a team with the guys they tried to ship out.  Good times.  They’ve changed coach and GM, but the Oilers are what they are always.  Fast, young-ish, pretty soft, no defense, and very, very cold.  They signed Nikolai Khabibulin, 38 f*cking years old, to a four year deal, and will soon learn what the Hawks and Lightning did:  A locked-up Khabby is soon to be an injured and bad Khabby.  Welcome to it.

Minnesota Wild: Well, if Calgary goes all trap-y, at least the Wild are getting out of the business.  God was this team awful to watch.  It was like watching the Cleveland Cavaliers offense without Lebron, lots of confused individuals fleeing back to the defensive end.  Now that Lemaire’s gone, they say they’ll open it up.  But they don’t have enough pieces to be successful at it yet, and I bet if they’re sniffing a playoff spot in February, they’ll go back to what they know.  Still, solid goalie here in Backstrom, they’ll be hard to beat most nights.  But at least they won’t make you stab yourself just to remind that you can actually feel.

Vancouver Canucks: Anything funnier than Roberto Luongo crying after giving up 7 in an elimination game?  Maybe that Monty Python fish-slapping sketch.  This team tried to skate with Chicago and got burned last season, and they’re equally set up to do so again.  Not only does Luongo have to prove himself in the playoffs — he folded like a flan last year — but so do bellweathers Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows.  These two set the tone for the team all year, and then went all Jimmy Hoffa Now in the second round.  The Sedins will score, Luongo will stop regular season pucks, and they’ll be hard to play against up until May.  Betting beyond that is folly.

Pacific Division

Anaheim Ducks: People are sleeping on this team because of the loss of Pronger, but they shouldn’t.  They actually boast two lines know instead of just the unholy force that is Corey Perry-Ryan Getzlaf-Bobby Ryan, and if Ryan Whitney can realize his potential, the defenders could be impressive.  They have two good goalies, so there’s a big safety net here.  Will push San Jose all the way.  But this fanbase sucks, and an Anaheim Ducks game is one of the worst experiences in the world.  18,000 bandwagon jumpers who think they know everything because the team won a Cup once.  Perfect story:  When I lived out there and went to see my Hawks at The Pond, I sat next to a man in leather Ducks jacket.  He had four season tickets.  Two on each side of the arena.  So he could always sit on the end The Ducks were attacking.  There you go.

Dallas Stars: This is your NHL team….this is your NHL team that relies on a goalie who’s jumped the shark.  Marty Turco’s pretty much done, but the Stars don’t know that, and they’ll be bad again.  And Mike Ribeiro will still look like a rapist.

LA Kings: This year’s surprise team.  Lots of fun forwards, including Dustin Brown who plays the game as if he just saw someone f#cking his sister.  A young, solid defensive unit with a solid pick up in Rob Scuderi, and two young goaltenders who were real good last year.  This team is going to sneak into the playoffs, and the 19,000 hockey fans in Los Angeles will rejoice.  They’re cool people, you just have to find them.

Phoenix Coyotes: Real smart move bringing in coach Dave Tippet after The Great One jumped off this sinking ship.  They might actually be able to develop some of the young players they have in abundance.  But a low talent level + an empty arena + constant rumors about the team’s future means a a long year.

San Jose Sharks: It’s the Same Old Story, Same old song and dance, my friend.  This team will roll through the regular season, Dany Heatley will make a run at 70 goals playing with Thornton, who’ll crack 110 points.  They’ll finish atop the conference.  But this team has spit it with two coaches now, the rot runs deep.  Jumbo Joe will throw down the smoke bomb right after the regular season and disappear, Heatley will stop scoring, Nabokov will only be okay in net, it won’t be enough, and everyone will blame Patrick Marleau who’ll probably have skated his ass off all year.  Insanity is…..

Playoff Teams:

1. San Jose

2. Chicago

3.  Vancouver

4 Detroit

5.  Anaheim

6.  St. Louis

7.  Calgary

8. LA

Western Champion: Chicago.  Yeah, it’s a homer pick, but Huet isn’t as bad as people want to believe, and the rest of this team is just loaded, led by Jonathan Toews — who would bludgeon his own sister for a chance at a Cup.

Eastern Conference – Atlantic Division:

New Jersey Devils: I really wanted to write the Devils out of the playoffs, but I can’t, because they always find a way, and they have the goaltender with the most wins in history back there.  They’ll be boring again under Jacque Lemaire, and they’ll win just enough to get in.

New York Rangers: Gonna be a long season on Broadway.  When Vinny Prospal is your #1 center, you’re in trouble.  And when he gets to center Marian Gaborik for the only 25 games Gabby will be healthy, you’re f#cked, without any of the customary fun.  Throw in the fact that Henrik Lundqvist will be backstopping Sweden in the Olympics, and he ran out of gas last year pulling the Rags a$$ out of the fire, and MSG is going to have two non-playoff residents.

New York Islanders: If they reach an agreement to stay on Long Island, the season will be a success.  #1 pick John Tavares will be an interesting watch, though.

Philadelphia Flyers:  Over the summer, the Flyers picked up the one player who was screaming out to be a Flyer one day, and that’s Chris Pronger.  An elbow-throwing, skate-stomping, all-world pr*ck and a suspension waiting to happen just belongs in Orange and Black, and it’s finally happened.  This bolsters what was already an underrated blue line, and the Flyers are loaded at forward with Mike Richards, Simon Gagne, Jeff Carter, and stone b^tch Scott Hartnell.  But like death, taxes, and me being not sober, the Flyers have questions in net.  Ray Emery was such a headcase in Ottawa he got his punk-a$$ sent to Russia for a year, but the talent is there with his kid.  If being cold all the time and drinking vodka and eating a lot of borscht has straightened him out, then he might be the one to take the Flyers out of the East.  Says here he will.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Well, we know they’ll be on TV a f#ckload.  And we’ll hear lots of people — mostly from Eastern Pennsylvania — complain about biased treatment from the league towards the Pens, and we’ll hear Sidney Crosby complain a lot, about everything.  Regardless, this team still boasts two of the three  best players in the league, and that’s a problem for everybody.  They took a hit on the blueline, losing Rob Scuderi to LA, who was a grown-a$$ man in the playoffs last year.  However, I love the kid who’s coming into replace him, Alex Goliogoski.  He matures quickly enough, and this will basically be the same Pens team that hilariously beat Detroit (Scum) in Game 7.  Formidable, but you wonder how much the Olympics will take out of this squad.

Northeast Division

Boston Bruins: The only way the Bruins don’t waltz to this division crown is mass-outbreak of something, or the curse of Ted Kennedy, or Dan Shaunnesy cutting a poisonous fart in the dressing room, and we all know that his kill.  Boston had to unload headcase Phil Kessel because they couldn’t afford him, but those 36 goals from last season are inflated by playing with Marc Savard, the best passer this side of Joe Thornton.  The defense is still a collective Mastadon, with Chara and Wideman heading the list.  Tim Thomas only won a Vezina last year, and though he’s 35 and you wonder about flash-in-the-pan status and carrying the load of a Cup contender and Olympic starter — which he may be — the corps in front of him will keep his workload down.  Wheeler, Bergeron, and Krejci provide enough scoring behind the top line, this team is good.  Which means more bandwagon Boston fans for something.  But they like it when the bruins are good, because they don’t have to root for black people, anathema in Boston.

Buffalo Sabres:

How Lindy Ruff has a job still is anyone’s guess.  But then again, he’s almost never given anything to work with.  You know the drill with the Sabres:  They’re filled with small, quick, shifty forwards who get hurt in a stiff breeze and they’re all named Derek or Ales, have a bunch of defensemen you wouldn’t recognize if they raped you in the shower, and will count on Ryan Miller to carry them to an #8 seed.  He might be good enough to do it, and would have last year had he not got hurt.

Montreal Canadiens: What happens when an entire roster parties and f#cks it’s way into totally biffing the most famous organization in Canada’s 100th year anniversary?  You go out the door.  The Habs have turned over half the roster, bringing in smurfs Scott Gomez, Mike Cammalleri, Brian Giona, and others.  Who knows how it’s going to work.  But frankly, this blue line sucks, goalie Carey Price can only be counted on to bum all your cigarettes, and there’s the added pressure of playing in front of fake-French people.  They might score a lot, but they’ll give up a lot, too.

Ottawa Senators: Well, now that they’ve gotten rid of Person of The Year and Edmonton Chamber of Commerce Poster Boy Dany Heatley, you can expect the Sens to be pretty mediocre.  Whatever Heatley was, it’s 50 goals walking out the door, and unknowns in Jonathan Cheechoo and Milan Michalek coming back.  There was no forward depth here, the blue-line is shoddy, and there’s a pile of man-goo in net.  Should be fun in the capital.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Season hasn’t started yet and this team already annoys me.  Yes, the league would be better if Toronto mattered again, but not if I have to listen to the constant fellating of GM Brian Burke, perhaps the most overrated GM in the league (go look back and see who drafted all the Ducks who won the Cup, wasn’t Burke.  All he did was pick the carcass of Edmonton when Pronger demanded a trade).  The “Irishman” shows up in Toronto, uses a lot of big words to describe beating people up, and every Canadian gets a breeze between their legs.  Yes, they’ll be better.  Yes, they’ll be hard to play against.  But in a league that wants you to get up and down the ice and score, the Leafs have a lot of d-men who have no use for the adjective “mobile” and could get lit by better teams they can’t skate with, and can’t score with.  And I’ll laugh and laugh.

NASCAR Division

Atlanta Thrashers: No one cares there, so why should we?  Only storyline here is the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes, who’s a free agent at the end of the year and there’s less chance of him staying in Atlanta than a Public Option.

Carolina Hurricanes: Buffalo Sabres south, but much much better.  Cam Ward should be the starting goalie for Canada, but won’t, because he plays for Carolina.

Florida Panthers: Underrated team here.  Lots of scoring, and a coach who loves to push the pace.  The blue line lost Jay Bouwmeester, but gained Jordan Leopold who isn’t awful, and a decent goalie in Vokoun.  Fun to watch, though no one in Florida is.  Next on the Jim Basillie hotine, could scrap for a playoff spot.

Tampa Bay Lightning: An overturned clown car, with about 13 d-men.  Move on.

Washington Capitals: They have the best player in the world, and you don’t.  Past him, Niklas Backstrom, and Alex Semin, you wonder about scoring depth, but they find a way.  Though they boast Mike Green, the best offensive d-man in the league, he and the rest of the crew back there don’t really know how to, y’know, defend.  Interesting goalie battle here between Varlamov and Jose Theodore, and whoever wins will see his share of rubber.  That said, they’ll eat up a lot of points in their division, have a two month stretch when they’ll look like Cup winners, and their blue line will spit it in Round 2 again.

Playoff Teams

1.  Bruins

2.  Capitals

3.  Flyers

4.  Pens

5.  Hurricanes

6.  New Jersey

7.  Montreal

8.  Florida

Eastern Champ: Flyers.  I think they get it right this time, and the fatigued Pens just won’t be able to catch up.  Too much scoring, better goaltending than you think, and even if Pronger doesn’t have the juice any more, the rest of the d-corps does.  Cheesesteak time.

Western Conference to follow….

]]> http://www.theotherfifteen.com/2009/09/piss-on-eddie-shore-your-nhl-preview-eastern-conference/feed/ 0 http://www.theotherfifteen.com/2009/09/bay-area-baddasses/ http://www.theotherfifteen.com/2009/09/bay-area-baddasses/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:04:36 +0000 Jeremy Hawn http://www.theotherfifteen.com/?p=1463

Winners? You'd better believe it.

Yesterday, both the Raiders and the 49ers won, which really hasn’t happened on the same day all too often in the last few years.  But there’s something different about these two teams that makes me think they will get back some of their mystique and be back to their winning ways in the very near future.  When I started thinking about this, the only explanation I could come up with is the coaching changes both teams made in the middle of last year.  But not just the coaching changes, the theater that came with them.

First came Mike Singletary for the Niners.  He came into his first game as a coach, immediately benched his starting QB, pulled down his pants in the locker room at half time to illustrate how his team was being embarrassed, sent his starting tight end to the showers before the game was over, then went on this awesome and epic coaching rant.

Yeah!  You tell ‘em, Mike!  If you’re not inspired by that speech, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you.  I LOVE this guy.  He was the leader of the 85 Bears, and the prototype for the middle linebacker position as it’s currently played and drawn up (he’s the reason they call the position the “Mike” backer).  He was the Peyton Manning of defense, more cerebral than physical, coming to the line and calling out assignments for his defensive teammates as he read the offensive formations and made adjustments to the coverage based on what he saw.  There is literally no way he can not be a successful coach.  I’ve been telling my SF friends since last year that they have no idea how lucky they are to have him.  He handled the Michael Crabtree drama with the same attitude he showed in the video above, and properly prepared the players he has for winning.  And they’re doing just that, getting off to a 2-0 start.  If they can ride Frank Gore and Patrick Willis past the rest of their weak division, the 49ers could be looking at the playoffs THIS season, let alone in the future.

Then there’s the Raiders.  If you had told me just three weeks ago that they would look like a legitimate and respectable team, I wouldn’t have even laugh, because humor is rooted in truth and there’s no way that statement would have even resembled reality.  But here we are after week 2, and the Raiders are 1-1, with a close win in their division and a very close loss in their division.  They play physical D, with sacks from new Raider Richard Seymore, hard hits from Thomas Howard, and great coverage from Nnamdi Asomugha.  They have a young and inexperienced offense, but one with a lot of talent once they harness it, especially in Darren McFadden and JaMarcus Russel.  How did they get here?

Well, first we have the surreal firing of Lane Kiffin by Al Davis.  This has to be one of the strangest moments in sports for so many reasons.  But then you have Tom Cable taking over despite having a very short and unspectacular resume.  The rest of last year after the coaching change didn’t go well.  Then, right before the season, he punched an assistant coach and broke his jaw. That can only happen with the Raiders.  So all the evidence was pointing toward another chaotic year, and then they come out of the gate looking respectable, and have an outside shot at unseating the Chargers for the AFC West (goddamn the Western divisions suck right now).

So what did we learn from these examples?  If you want to turn around a once-proud-but-fallen franchise, just hire a coach that will act so crazy and be so intimidating that everyone will immediately fall in line.  If you were a player in the bay area, would you do something to piss your coach off right now?  I didn’t think so.

First, the good news.  The Bears won their home opener today against the defending champion Steelers 17-14.  The game featured a mistake-free performance from our new QB, Jay Cutler, in which he bounced back from shitting the bed in his Bears debut against the hated Packers.  Cutler led the team on two 4th quarter drives, one that ended in a TD pass to tie it, and another to set up the game-winning field goal by Robbie Gould.  It was a great way to salvage the season for Bears fans like me who had assumed that our season was over after watching Cutler make the worst first impression of any athlete in my memory and having no cushion for the blow of losing Brian Urlacher, our team leader and best player, for the season after only one big hit.  We looked good today.  Cutler looked good today.  Our receivers looked good today.  Our D stepped up in Urlacher’s absence, including Alex Brown (I can go on an epic rant about why Alex Brown is my favorite player and why he should be making Pro-Bowls if you guys want, but I’ll leave it up to you since that can be it’s own article.  Also, I can give you a full story on why my brother’s favorite player is Adrian Peterson… the OTHER Adrian Peterson.)  Overall, it was an extremely entertaining game and a valuable and uplifting win for the Bears and their fans.

Now on to the bad news.  And it’s really bad.  So if you’re not a Cubs fan, or you don’t feel like laughing at the Cubs’ problems, I suggest you stop reading now.

This is the Wrigley home opener. Way to make a first impression, Milton. I mean that. You showed us exactly what to expect from that day forward.

Milton Bradley was sent home for the rest of the season by Cubs GM Jim Hendry after Bradley was quoted as saying,

“You understand why they haven’t won in 100 years here.  It’s just not a positive environment.  I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment… It’s just negativity.”

There’s so much I want to say about this, I don’t even know where to begin.  I’m going to have to do this in stages.  First things first, I have to break down that quote.  “It’s just not a positive environment.”  I’m sorry, but anyone who has ever followed the Cubs, been to Wrigley, heard the myriad songs written about our beloved team, or anyone who understands unconditional love despite all evidence to the contrary knows that he is just plain incorrect about this.  It’s not a subjective judgment.  He is wrong.  Cubs fans are as positive as they come in sports.  Ok, I can understand how Bradley thinks this from his perspective.  The fans boo him.  They’ve booed him since after his home debut, in which he argued balls and strikes with the home plate umpire and got ejected and suspended.  He then spent the rest of the year much like that at bat: playing terribly, blaming it on everyone but himself, and missing time for a variety of reasons that can all be chalked up to his fragile body and mental instability.  So he’s right from his perspective, Wrigley field and Cubs fans have not been kind to him.

The problem is, he feels no responsibility in this and thinks that it starts with the fans.  In reality, they were only reacting to a guy who was TERRIBLE when he played, missed a lot of time, was completely belligerent, and made comments befitting a paranoid schizophrenic all along the way.  As for the second part, “I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment,” I can’t believe that Bradley can say that and not realize that he’s really talking about his own mental state, and not the fans at Wrigley.  Milton Bradley needs a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment in his mind.  He is mentally unstable.  He is emotionally unstable.  He needs to create that stability, that health, and that happiness for himself.  This is a shockingly negative, disturbingly paranoid, dangerously angry man who lacks any control over his reactions.  No one can control his or her environment, but a person can control it’s effects on them and their interactions with it.  Bradley clearly doesn’t understand that he has the option of controlling himself in order to change his interactions in a given environment, or he just lacks any will to control himself.  In the end, I would say that it’s a good thing that he has to sit and stew on this, except that I don’t think that he can gain anything from it based on his lack of recognition for his need to change, let alone a desire to do so.  The one positive is that he is kept away from the rest of our team and away from the fans who are completely justified in hating him.  He is a person who spreads his vitriol everywhere he goes.  How can he not understand why negativity follows him?  Has he really never once in his life considered that he is the cause of it all?

The second part of this is the problem of Milton Bradley in general.  He is not even a full year into a three year, $30 million contract.  There is literally NO WAY he can possibly stay with our team.  He has alienated himself from the front office, the manager, his teammates (not ONE of which have I ever heard or read coming to his defense all year), the media, the MLB league offices, the umpires, and the fans.  Note: I could have just said everybody instead of listing them, but I really wanted you guys to understand that it really is EVERYONE that he has come in contact with in his time as a Cub (though I left the clubhouse attendants out of this because I’m not sure about them, but I would go all in on them thinking he’s an epic prick).  We have to trade him, but who will take him right now?  The only way I see out of this is a team trading for him as long as the Cubs pay 80%-90% of his remaining contract through its duration.  I mean, we’re talking about the worst person in baseball.  I mean that when I say it.  I don’t think he’d even be a big deal if he was productive, but he’s made himself completely untouchable with the combination of horrible play and constant deplorable behavior.

The other big problem here is GM Jim Hendry.  He’s the guy who signed Milton Bradley.  Let’s break down the events that led to that signing and the rest of the construction of the 2009 Cubs (or rather the destruction of the 2008 Cubs who owned the best record in the NL).  First, Lou Pinella asks him for more lefty bats after the way the Dodgers exploited our righty-heavy lineup in the 2008 playoffs.  So Hendry trades an All-Star quality utility man in Mark DeRosa, trades Jason Marquis (a pitcher who he wildly overpaid for two seasons prior) and refused to offer Kerry Wood a contract, telling him to go get paid while he could despite Wood being set for life financially and begging to remain a Cub for life so he could help us win and be with his family in his adopted home of Chicago.  Two of those three moves are indefensible (DeRo and Wood).  The other move, Marquis, was good simply because Hendry had overpaid for him in the first place.

Hendry made these moves to free up cap space for the power-hitting lefty bat in right field that he and Lou felt we needed.  This is also to point out that Jim Hendry thought he had solved this problem last year when he vastly overpaid for Kosuke Fukudome who turned out to not be a power hitter at all.  So Hendry had three options: Bradley, Raul Ibanez, and Bobby Abreu.  First, Hendry tried to low-ball Raul Ibanez, and the Phillies grabbed the 30+ home run hitter and All-Star for less than we eventually signed Bradley for.  The next step is the most curious.  I have never heard an account of Hendry offering a contract to Bobby Abreu.  Abreu was the best batter on the Yankees other than A-Rod during their tenure in NY together.  He is a five tool player, and his numbers only would have improved by moving from the AL East to the NL Central.  Age could not have been a factor, since Abreu is two years younger than Ibanez.  In the end, Abreu remained unsigned for an inexplicable amount of time and eventually signed for only one year and $5 million with the Angels, for whom he has had a phenomenal season.  So even though Hendry was presented by more consistent, accomplished, durable, emotionally stable, and somehow cheaper options, he instead decided to pay $30 million for Milton Bradley to play right field despite Bradley being a full-time DH for the last two years and being an obvious risk for injury, suspension, and clashes with teammates and management.

The only explanation for this is that Jim Hendry is not a smart man.  I’m not being mean or calling names.  I didn’t say he’s stupid.  He’s not.  He’s just proved himself to not be anything above average intelligence.  My argument for this, aside from his constantly overpaying for poorly evaluated players and his being ripped off by other GMs who are smarter than him (more on this later), is that he clearly tries really hard to understand the statistical analysis of baseball and fails.  He poorly projected Fukudome’s Japanese power stats to the MLB when every Japanese player to come to the States has had a drop in power from the bigger parks and different balls in the MLB.  He then tried to wrap his average mind around Bradley posting an on base percentage of over .400 for two consecutive seasons.  What Hendry did was he tried to “use SABRmetrics” to play “Moneyball.”  But it’s hard to do those things when you don’t understand what they are.  Bradley’s OBP means that he gets on base, but he only had 22 homers and 77 RBI last year.  Hendry wanted a power bat, and instead he got a guy who requires other guys to drive him in.  It should be noted that Bradley was most effective this year when hitting out of the 2 hole, getting on base in front of Derrek Lee.  In trying to play “Moneyball” by using advanced stats, Hendry failed to realize that the key principal in “Moneyball” is getting a lot of production for very little money.  How was he saving money by overpaying for a guy who didn’t fit our needs?  What was the point of trading away all of those players to pay for the most expensive and least statistically accomplished of his three options?  I don’t think Jim Hendry has explanations for these things, because I don’t think he gets where he went wrong, otherwise he would have been able to see what was wrong with his plan before he executed it.

As for the other evidence that Hendry isn’t smart, he was fleeced by the guy he replaced.  Hendry traded three of our best prospects of the last few years in Rich Hill, Ronny Cedeno, and Felix Pie for Aaron Heilman.  Aaron Heilman was a complete liability for our team.  By mid-season he was only being used mop up duty in huge losses.  Meanwhile, Cedeno is hitting and fielding well with the Pirates, Felix Pie has hit for the cycle with the Orioles, who also have a young starter in Rich Hill who could still be a front of the rotation pitcher if he stops walking people.  Baltimore GM Andy MacPhail clearly understands “Moneyball,” as he has fleeced other GMs for young and cheap talent like Adam Jones, and is building a winner through those trades and through his farm system.  Don’t be surprised when the Orioles are a good team two years from now.  This is a GM who won two World Series championships with the Twins.  He didn’t do well with the Cubs due to the constraints of their parent company and his poor adjustment to having money to spend for the first time in his career.

So, although we clearly made the right choice in switching from MacPhail to Hendry and have had three playoff runs to show for it, Jim Hendry is clearly not the answer either to the Cubs quest for a title, now on its 101st year.  Getting rid of him might be just as important as getting rid of Milton Bradley.  He overhauled a contender and turned us into a very expensive non-contender.  That combination leaves us few options for improvement in the near future.  The only option left is to overhaul the front office.  Thanks for the memories, Jim.  I mean that.  Yours was the most successful Cubs tenure of my lifetime by far.  But you are outclassed by your peers.  You have outlived your usefulness and have become a liability.  You gave us a good run, but it’s time to move on.

Vince Young: not a good QB, but a great guy.

Here’s a couple tearjerkers for you:  First a story about Vince Young picking up the slack and taking care of Steve McNair’s fatherless kids.  Apparently McNair’s youngest sons had a breakfast event through their school with all of the kid’s dads this morning.  McNair’s kids had to hear all week how excited the other kids were about their dad’s coming and knowing that their dad wouldn’t be there.  So who steps in?  Vince Young.  Young has known the family since he was a  kid and attended McNair’s football camps and considers himself a big brother to the McNair’s kids.  He picked them up, took them to the even, and spent th whole morning with them, and even brought jerseys that he signed for the other kids in the boys’ school.  Commence sobbing like you just watched Bambi’s mom get shot for the first time.

In other news, some Phillies fan caught a foul ball for the first time in his life.  He then handed it to his young daughter as a souvenir… who then proceeded to throw it right back onto the field.  Dad, not wanting her to feel like she did anything wrong, immediately hugged her for her cutsie little mistake.  The Philly fans cheered the gesture.  The organization also took note of the moment, getting them all custom jerseys and a signed ball by Jason Werth, who had hit the original foul ball.  Now the whole family is going on the Today show…  Alright, this story is bullshit!  I don’t believe it.  I refuse to believe that Philly fans didn’t boo this little girl.  I smell propaganda from a mile away.  This HAS to be some kind of stunt by the Philly tourism board after those three Phillies fans killed that other Phillies fan over a spilled drink.  Call me a skeptic, but I’m keeping my eye on this one.  Either way, a photo montage of the events below.