A new… artistic direction

You might have noticed the 8-bit Randy Moss in the article below. I’ve been fooling around in Photoshop for the last few weeks, and I noticed how boring my site is when there’s no pictures (or new columns, for that matter), so I’m gonna try to produce one of those 8-bit thingies for everything I write of any significance. Since this isn’t that significant, there will not be any picture for this post. But hopefully this can become my gimmick, like how Sports By Brooks posts chicks and Kotaku posts cakes.

EDIT: Fuck it, here’s a picture.

The Great Divider

So the Patriots have acquired Randy Moss in a trade that seems to be creating a division amongst football fans, New Englanders and not.

The Pats’ success over the last 6 years, combined with their smug coach and handsome QB, has created disdain for the Foxboro crew. Critics say they’ve become conceited and arrogant. This sentiment appears to have been applied to the Pats’ fanbase as well. Football fans openly root against them. People were happier after the Colts won the AFC Championship than when they won the Super Bowl this past season.

As a result, fans across the country are crossing their fingers, hoping that the addition of Randy Moss is like an injection of poison into this flourishing organism. A monkey wrench on their back, to quote the great Jason Penopolis. They want Randy Moss to be to the Patriots what Terrell Owens was to the 49ers, Cowboys, and especially the Eagles.

The TO comparisons are easy to make. Both wide receivers are outstanding athletes. Many feel or felt, at one point, they were 1-2 in the top WRs in the league. They run down the field at outstanding speeds, then leap above all defenders to snatch a normally uncatchable ball. They break away from their tackler, then run it into the endzone, where they perform a hilarious and/or controversial end zone dance. They’re the two most memorable wide receivers of the last 15 years not named Jerry Rice. Of course, the comparisons don’t end there. Both are associated with off-field problems and are frequently labeled “clubhouse cancers”, as though they’re a throbbing tumor that grows on the team’s side, and even though they cut it off, it’s still lingering somehow.

The truth is, they’re quite different from each other.

The ironic thing is, TO, for a span of about 4 months, managed to shake this reputation. After Super Bowl XXXIX, you heard it everywhere. “You know, TO may be a hot dog and a bad influence, but when push comes to shove, he’ll give you 100% every night. Randy Moss doesn’t do that”. And that statement is true. TO tries hard, Randy doesn’t. But it is for that exact reason that TO ruins teams, and Randy doesn’t.

Here’s a secret about rich people, particularly athletes. Rich athletes don’t think like you and me. Alonzo Mourning and Peyton Manning don’t have the same concerns that Frank at the gas station does. When Manny Ramirez doesn’t run out a short grounder, fans get pissed. “He’s being paid $20 million a year! If you paid me that much, I’d run out everything!”. But the truth is, for the most part, rich athletes don’t really give a shit about that. Rich athletes think like rich athletes. They don’t have Frank problems. They have Rich Athlete problems.

So when Allen Iverson doesn’t show up to practice, athletes don’t complain. They might resent it a little that they have to practice while AI doesn’t, but that’s a luxury afforded to one of the 20 greatest players ever. When Manny doesn’t run out a grounder, David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez don’t give a fuck.

(I had given him #84 in this picture previously, but I forgot Ben Watson had it already. And Stallworth has 18 already. So I went with his college number 88. I’m sure Kyle Brady won’t mind.)

But don’t think that they don’t respect hustle. When Troy Brown volunteers to play defense, fans and players agree: Troy Brown is awesome. When Larry Bird goes headfirst into the front row for a ball that’s been out of bounds for the last four minutes, fans go bananas, and players get pumped up. Everyone loves a hustle player, and everyone loves hard work.

So when TO shocked the world in 2005 and took the field that night in Jacksonville, the Eagles were inspired. They played their asses off and came within 3 points of upsetting the heavily favored Patriots. Donovan McNabb was so inspired he forgot to manage the clock in the last 7 minutes of the game. And since they hadn’t been to the Super Bowl before TO came to town, the guys in the locker room respected TO even more.

Which leads us to when TO started shooting his mouth off the next season and began questioning McNabb and complaining about his salary. What basically happened in Philly was that fans got behind McNabb, as did a group of the veteran leaders on the team, which created the illusion that the whole team was against TO. But the reason the Eagles fell apart was because a separate faction of rich athletes on the Eagles agreed with TO’s rich athlete problems. TO wants more money. TO’s not getting enough respect. TO wants the ball. And because TO had played in that Super Bowl and earned people’s respect, they couldn’t all just turn their back on him. So they picked sides. And that’s what killed the Eagles. It’s still lingering today, too. Notice how Jeff Garcia was embraced by the clubhouse with McNabb being a forgotten shadow on the sideline. There’s still animosity today.

And it went on in Dallas and San Francisco too, where rich athlete teammates kind of agreed with TO’s side of things, and problems started.

Randy Moss is an entirely different story. When Randy was angry, Randy stopped trying. And while a Randy playing at 40% might hurt the team on the field, people aren’t exactly going to jump on his bandwagon. The only guy who looked bad was Randy, because he was dogging it on the field and getting arrested off of it. When he was shipped off, teammates held the door open for him, because he was just being a dick. It happened in Minnesota, then it happened in Oakland.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Randy Moss screwed over Oakland big time. They gave up a decent linebacker and two picks (including an early first rounder) to get him, then paid him $10 million or so a year to fart around and get nothing done. It didn’t help that he had a different shite quarterback and a different shite coach each year. But they gave up a lot for him, and only got a 4th round pick in return. But the Raiders clubhouse isn’t irreparably damaged post-Randy.

And that’s where we come full circle, to the Patriots. Here’s the absolute worse case scenario. Randy comes in, starts some shit with Brady and Brown and Bruschi and Rodney, and dogs it on the field. What happens? The Pats cut his ass. He was acquired in a trade, so there’s no monstrous cap hit or anything, and he restructured his deal so he only gets $3 million a year. And that’s all that happens. Reche Caldwell doesn’t suddenly hate Tom Brady. Eugene Wilson doesn’t suddenly hate Bill Belichick.

And the best-case scenario? The Pats get a top-5 wide receiver for only a 4th round pick. They pay him $3 million a year
to catch uncatchable balls while his jersey flies off the shelf. And because it’s not Kerry Collins or Aaron Brooks throwing him the ball, you can bet he’s gonna put up the numbers.

So apologies to all the non-Pats fans. I obviously can’t and won’t guarantee anything in terms of championships. Anything can happen. Brady can get injured and the whole season will probably be fucked. And as we’ve seen in opposite roles before this last year, the team with the great QB and star WR doesn’t always win every game. Anything can happen.

But I’ve got a pretty decent feeling Randy Moss isn’t going to hurt this team very much no matter what he does.

Look East for your Home Run Hero

Unfortunately for Braves fans, Brewer fans and baseball fans, Barry Bonds is probably going to beat Hank Aaron’s all-time record. Any hopes we had of his body completely breaking down like that anti-steroid commercial with that crumbling statue are probably dashed. Giants fans, of course, welcome the eventual milestone, because booing him would invalidate all they’ve ever cheered for over the last 15 years. Once he’s gone, it may be a different story. But for now, very few are looking forward to #756. Some folks have even stooped so low to start rooting for A-Rod to beat the marks.

There’s two reasons for this, both of which are obvious; (1), Barry’s an asshole. He cheated, he was a dick about it, and he was a dick even before people started questioning him about it. And (2), we all like Hank Aaron. When you think of great basketball players, the first 5 names that come to mind are Jordan, Bird, Magic, Russell and Kareem. Maybe Wilt sneaks in there sometimes. But there’s generally that top-5 or 6 that everyone agrees on. In hockey, the top is even tighter. It’s Gretzky, Howe and Orr. Football changes all the time, but most people agree that Jim Brown’s somewhere in that five. And in baseball, it’s Ruth, Mays, Williams, Mantle and Aaron. He’s one of the five greatest players of all time. Simple as that. And he was on Happy Days, so we all know he’s a cool dude.

Of course, most baseball fans also know of a man by the name of Sadaharu Oh. If not, they at least know about the Japanese guy who also hit a ton of homers. Sadaharu hit 868 home runs in Japan, which, of course, is 113 more than Aaron. But just about everyone agrees that Aaron is the home run champ. He hit his homers in America against the best pitchers in the world, while Oh hit his against the best pitchers in the continent. And while Jim Palmer says Oh would’ve been great in America too, it’s probably safe to say he wouldn’t have hit 868 over here.

Here’s my issue; people complained about the asterisk on Roger Maris’ record because they said a record is a record. It didn’t matter that he had more games to do it in. A record is a record is a record. And no one complained about Ruth’s records, even though he never played against black athletes. A record is a record is a record. So why do we so quickly dismiss Sadaharu Oh’s 868?

Here’s an idea. Once Barry passes Aaron, MLB holds a ceremony to annoint Sadaharu Oh the true home run king of baseball. Do it when Matsuzaka faces Matsui, so there’s already plenty of press there. And then we can all worship Sadaharu Oh and forget about Barry, and everyone will still agree that Aaron was one of the five best players ever. Does anyone have a problem with this? It’d be the ultimate distraction from Barry-land. Who’s gonna lead the backlash to acknowledge Barry as the home run champ? Skip Bayless? Please, he’s a dink. No one listens to him.

My Tank is Fight

The 2006-07 Boston Celtics season is over. They will finish the season with the second-worst record in the NBA and, more importantly, a 38.9% chance at a top-two pick.

Coming into this season, I had high expectations of this team. I obviously wasn’t expecting a championship, or even a conference semi appearance. I figured their ceiling was winning an awful Atlantic division and lasting one or two rounds before bowing out, either due to meeting a better team or simply Doc Rivers getting outcoached, like Rick Carlisle did in ‘05. Looking at the lineup, it seemed pretty solid. Paul Pierce was coming off a career year, and is capable of carrying the team by himself on some nights. Wally Szcerbiak was a defensive liability, but he could still shoot the lights out. Sebastian Telfair was one of the most promising young players of the last few years, acquired because he seemed to have a higher ceiling than any PG in the draft that year. Al Jefferson was showing flashes of brilliance, negated by frustrating stretches of uselessness, but he was a year older. And Kendrick Perkins looked like a poor man’s Ben Wallace in ‘06, blocking and rebounding enough to make up for his lack of offensive game. The bench looked strong, too. Delonte West would be a good scoring touch off the bench, and Gerald Green was the next Tracy McGrady. Ryan Gomes established himself as another option off the bench in ‘06 as well, and Theo Ratliff could provide veteran leadership and experience for a few minutes a game, too.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference. Pierce and Wally got hurt, and the latter’s attempts to return early made him only a liability on the court. Telfair didn’t become Magic Johnson. He didn’t even become Kenny Anderson. He just didn’t do anything of note at all. Kendrick Perkins was alright, but wasn’t putting up the defensive stats he had in ‘06. Tony Allen was a nice surprise, but killed his season with an ill-advised dunk. Gerald Green reminded us why players are better off spending a few years in college before going pro, Theo Ratliff played two games and scored five points, and Delonte West and Ryan Gomes didn’t become the 6th and 7th men we thought they were going to be. Al Jefferson was pretty much the only thing that went right all year.

And so, rather than pick up the 45-49 wins we thought they’d get, they struggled. A lot. They lost 18 straight, they lost close games, they lost in blowouts, they lost more than two thirds of their games. For some strange reason, though, they didn’t lose the fans. While the Toronto Dominion BankNorth Delaware North Company Garden wasn’t necessarily selling out every night, they certainly were drawing more ticket sales, media coverage and interest than the Bruins, who underachieved but was still barely in the playoff picture until a few weeks left in the season.

Of course, the reason for this sustained interest was the light at the end of the tunnel, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the sign that spins when you run past it with Sonic’s face on one side and Tails’ face on the other at the end of the level, the Draft.

About a third of the way through the season, we all realized we were going nowhere ( probably at the 11th consecutive loss) and the possibility of Oden or Durant was a nice consolation prize for losing so much. The team stayed close in a number of games, only to blow it at the end, sometimes apparently intentional, most of the time just due to Doc being a terrible game manager.

On a side note, I never minded Doc that much, but the first time I realized we were in trouble was the season opener, when Doc had all summer to gameplan our new offense, and every single play he called somehow ended up with Kendrick Perkins with the ball at the three point line, unguarded and unsure of what to do with it.

So the season went along, with us tanking away to our heart’s content. But now, something’s not right. Maybe it was the unique feeling of quietly rooting against your team, not being disappointed with tough losses, and seeing guys who are supposed to be our future failing miserably. Maybe it was Paul Pierce refusing to shut it down, because he just wanted to play basketball. Maybe we felt bad for him, selfishly, because we wasted another year from him.

As Bill Simmons has said, May 22nd is the day of reckoning. If we get that one or two, we can sit back and relax, relieved and looking forward, like a man who stabbed a hotel clerk on the way to Vegas. I killed that guy because I couldn’t afford the room, but hey, I’m gonna be rich in a week. No need to look back.

Which brings us to the other possibility, one that seems (and mathematically is) more likely, where we end up with the third or fourth or, god forbid, fifth pick. If and/or when that happens, then the shit hits the fan. That’s when you get pulled over by the cop who knows you stabbed that hotel clerk. Because everything you did in the past is coming back to bite you in the ass.

Dramatics aside, if the C’s get the 3rd or worse pick in the draft, then we’ll all just feel dirty. That’s it. We sold our soul to the devil and watched as we got screwed over by him. And this time, if we don’t get that pick, Ralph Macchio’s not gonna be there to beat the Devil/Steve Vai in a guitar duel.

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How do you change the essence of a man?

Okay, so I’ve largely ignored the site for an inexcusable period of time. For this, I apologize. I’ve been very, very busy and, when you write about things at the unnecessary lengths I do, there’s not a lot of time to write twice or even once a week when you’ve got other things to do.

I’m not shutting down the site or going on hiatus or nothing like that. But for the next few months, I might only write once in a while whenever something important’s on my mind. For example, I just finished the new Sam and Max, which I haven’t really written about at all since they came out. So that may come soon. Maybe never. But the site is going to mirror those of Jackson Publick and Asher Sarlin, in that I’ll only be posting sporadically for a while. Bear with me. I should resume a slightly more regular schedule eventually.