The Rantings & Ravings Of A (Formerly) Mad Mailman

Rational Pastime has some interesting, albeit unsurprising, information about MLB’s perceived competitive balance problem:

That said, we don’t yet have enough evidence to make this claim just yet. A deeper investigation of the level of competitive balance in baseball and other sports requires more than a look at regular season win distributions. We also need to look at the distribution of playoff appearances, as well as the volatility of win totals from year to year (what sociologists and economists would refer to as “mobility” were we discussing household and personal incomes rather than success in sport).

So there you have it–based on win distributions, the MLB is clearly the most balanced American sports league, and the NFL the least balanced, contrary to popular opinion. This tells us that there is something inherent in baseball that is generating a great deal of fairness for the teams that play, regardless of payroll disparity. This also raises the possibility that Baseball’s “competitive balance problem” may be nothing more than a public relations problem (which isn’t insignificant, it’s just not a problem that can be fixed by modifying the distribution of payrolls).

This isn’t exactly news to me. In fact, I have been saying it for some time.

Every time some egghead runs one of these studies, they find the same thing: Major League Baseball’s competitive balance, as measured by regular-season wins, compares favorably with the other sports.

I’m not even sure you need an egghead (or me) to tell you this. Just look around. The worst baseball teams will lose roughly 65 percent of their games. The worst football teams will lose 90 percent of their games; the worst basketball teams, roughly 85 percent.

MLB has had more different World Series winners over the last 20 years than any other sport can claim. It’s kind of obvious to those who can just get past the fact that, sadly, their teams suck or are just mis-managed all to hell.

So, I get it. Do you?

You should also get that the Royals, Reds and Pirates haven’t been truly competitive since today’s graduating college seniors were in diapers.

That is a public-relations problem for Major League Baseball and a management problem for a handful of teams.

So lay off the whining about a lack of competitive balance in baseball.

Free agency has always been first and foremost on LeBron Jame’s mind for as long as we can remember.

So how fitting is it that he uses something as shallow and senseless as the “Larry King Show” to upstage and NBA Finals battle between the two most storied franchises the league has?

As the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers gathered for a championship series to remind us of what built the league, what made it great, here’s LeBron James with a public ode on LeBron James.

“I’m the ringleader,” he told King.

Only, he has no rings.

D’oh! Oh well, that’s a minor detail.

He was talking about the free-agent crop of stars, because that’s mostly what James has cared about for two years now. He tried to win a title with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He really did.

He has surrounded himself with a collection of nitwits and hangers-on, sneaker reps and childhood buddies and middlemen whom he calls his “team”.

Somehow, this army couldn’t let him stay quiet until the playoffs were over, until everyone had pushed past the way he entered the witness protection program in the conference semifinals.

He did a vapid sit-down with King to air on Friday night, and then made sure to leak out a transcript that drones out the start of the NBA Finals.

Now some might want to dismiss this fact because, after all, it is the 25^th Anniversary week for our suspender wearing friend.

I am not one of those people. James appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show only reinforced what I suspected all along. The man can’t see past the tip of his nose.

In so many ways, he’s a young Alex Rodriguez, so insecure with himself and his MVP awards, so desperate to find validation in the courtship of free agency.

And we all remember how A-Rod was absolutely vilified for similar behavior a few years back. He was ravaged by the media, myself included, and called out for disrespecting the World Series and the game itself.

“He seems more enthusiastic about this than he did trying to beat the Celtics,” said one Western Conference GM. “I mean, who goes on Larry King to talk about ‘when I become a free agent’?”

Um, nobody does. Or at least, until this point nobody had.

Different times, different measures of self. James refuses to see himself in the context of sport, in the lineage of those before him.

There are two preps-to-the-pros stars in these NBA Finals – Kobe Bryant(notes) and Kevin Garnett(notes) – and sometimes people forget how much they struggled early on, how no one ever anointed them as skinny high schoolers leaping straight into the draft. They were talents, but they never had childhoods like James.

James climbed out of limousines at prep All-American sneaker camps. He wore shades and shirts which proclaimed himself King. He never learned to treat people with many manners or treat authority with respect. When he had something to say about himself, LeBron James never needed to consider the circumstances surrounding him.

Now, it happens again.

Free agency has enough hype without this selfish stunt, without him thinking that somehow everyone else is just a prop for his drama.

Two seasons ago, I watched James march into Madison Square Garden and sounded like a carnival barker, bellowing: “If you guys want to go to sleep right now and not wake up until July 1, 2010, then go ahead because it’s going to be a big day.”

He sat on a news-conference podium, with uncomfortable Cavaliers officials looking on, spitting out the date his personal playoffs begin: July 1, 2010. He loves to hear other free agents – Dwyane Wade(notes), Chris Bosh(notes), Amar’e Stoudemire(notes) and Carlos Boozer(notes) – all insist this process starts with him. He loves that no can make a move in July until he does.

He absolutely loves anything that strokes his ego.

The NBA had always been about June, but LeBron James couldn’t stand this month without him. The Celtics and Lakers earned themselves this stage, a throwback rivalry that makes those in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s so proud of the way these two teams, these champions, comport themselves.

The Celtics and Lakers are the NBA’s test of time – Bryant and Garnett, Gasol and Pierce. They’ve come to understand that those teams, those uniforms, represent something bigger than themselves, something that’s sustained this league forever.

Maybe someday LeBron James will find it, but something tells you of the emptiness awaiting him in July. Eventually, he’s going to have to find a team, sign a contract and the “Season of Me” will be over.

All he’s ever truly wanted was to be the so-called ringleader of free agency, and it’s almost here, almost his now. All these years, all these stars who lived for June, and now maybe the most gifted of them all has never stopped talking about July.

There is something incredibly, incredibly wrong about that fact.

Major League Baseball can’t deny it — the game needs to expand its instant-replay system.

Last postseason, by itself, has proven that.

For instance, the Twins’ Joe Mauer hit a blooper down the left-field line in Game 2 of Minnesota’s series against New York. The ball landed a good half foot inside the line, but, somehow, the foul-line umpire called it foul.

The call might have cost the Twins the game and a chance to make that series interesting.

And there’s no excuse to miss calls like the one in Game 4 of the Yankees-Angels ALCS series, when Mike Napoli clearly tagged out two Yankees by third base who weren’t touching the bag. Innocently but very incorrectly, respected umpire Tim McClelland ruled that Robinson Cano had his foot on third base.

The first replay showed what I had thought when I saw the play live — Cano’s foot was a good 6 inches from touching the rubber.

That could have been changed in a matter of a minute.

Nice and quick.

Those only illustrated the need for the expansion of instant replay.

During the past two weeks of the current season, there has been a plethora of badly missed calls. If you’ve watched the games with one eye, you know what I’m referring to.

All the umpires have been able to do is apologize. They can’t dispute the calls, because, um, their mistakes have been obvious. Really, really, really obvious.

Now we have the Detroit Tiger’s Armando Galarraga being robbed of baseball immortality.

In case you missed it, the Motown pitcher was starting in place of the recently deposed Dontrelle Willis and tossed an absolute gem of a game. A marvel of efficiency the righty only struck out three batters, but also needed just 88 pitches to complete his masterpiece.

Then, inexplicably, as the Tiger’s clearly recorded the final out veteran umpire Jim Joyce blew the call. Just flat out blew it. Every replay angle on earth showed the Indians Jason Donald was out by a couple of steps, but Joyce didn’t see it that way.

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it,” Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires’ locker room.

“I just cost that kid a perfect game,” Joyce said after seeking out the young pitcher to apologize personally. “I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay.”

“I don’t blame them a bit or anything that was said. I would’ve said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would’ve been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.”

Joyce will also undoubtedly get plenty of criticism over why he was ruling such a close play safe considering the circumstances. Yes, a tie does go to the runner … except when there is a perfect game on the line (thanks to some appendage to that rascally book of “unwritten rules” we hear about now and then.)

Joyce is only human and you can bet that this call will spur another heated debate over expanded instant replay in baseball that might actually go somewhere. And it should.

We now have a true instance of a single bad umpiring decision irrevocably changing the course of baseball history. One that could have been easily corrected by a review, even if the moment had already been spoiled. This is far from over.

As well it shouldn’t be, but not for the reason most think.

Galarraga was cooler than you or I might have been, going as far as to utter the most ironic of words in telling Joyce “Nobody’s perfect”.

I hope that isn’t lost in all of this because in today’s day & age of “me first” athletes he should really be commended for that fact.

The mere fact that baseball refused to take greater action over replay after last year’s gaffes clearly had a significant impact on it’s post-season games (therefore the season’s outcome), yet will undoubtedly do so now because of what amounts to a blown personal achievement that has no impact beyond the record book is not lost on me.

If change comes, make no mistake it will come for entirely the wrong reason.

We most certainly need to have an expansion of instant replay in the sport I love so much. Not because of some lost personal accolade, but rather so that we make sure the right team wins. But hell, I’ll take it anyway I can get it.

For all the baseball purists out there, I agree with you that MLB shouldn’t let managers be involved in the reviewing process.

Rather, the ump in the box should have all the authority to overturn, not “review,” any call that appears clearly incorrect.

In other words, if they see a replay and know right away that the call on the field wasn’t right, then overturn it.

If two replays don’t show conclusive evidence, play on. And no, balls and strikes should never be reviewed regardless of how many pitches are called wrong — that’s part of the game and always should be.

The fix is simple.

As many of the baseball sages have suggested, put an umpire in the press box with a TV. When he sees a call such as the Mauer one that’s transparently wrong, he’ll signal down to the field umpires in some fashion (helloooo, I can launch the space shuttle from my iPhone, they can figure something out).

The call is reversed. Everyone is happy. (Well, maybe not the team that was the beneficiary of the bad call. But they won’t feel so guilty about getting a break. … Scratch that — they probably wouldn’t feel guilty in the first place, but you get my drift.)

The point is, this is a simply fix. This isn’t football, when some fumble-or-no-fumble reviews are so close, they take 5 minutes, 43 seconds (and seven beer commercials) to review.

In the end, baseball can do what is absolutely right by the game, something it failed so miserably at during the Steroid Era. That would be a huge step in repairing the damage done to America’s past-time in recent years.

(P.S. It took only seconds for Joyce’s Wikipedia page to be defaced. The Internet abides!)

It wasn’t good enough to watch Democratic Senate candidate (Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut) fall on his face in a batch of lies and half-truths concerning his service, or lack there of, in Vietnam John?

It didn’t satisfy your “batshit loony” cravings to watch Rand Paul go on his I Have Officially Lost My Mind Tour?

The spate of embarrassments plaguing your colleagues, ranging from affairs with their female aides to affairs with their male aides hasn’t been enough to keep you focused and in the game my lil’ “I never called myself a maverick“?

Nope, I guess not. Because now that you have flip-flopped on your stance on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” you are jumping in bed with some of the craziest sons of bitches I have ever had the displeasure of running across.

But we’ll get to those crazies a little bit later.

First I want to make sure you don’t feed me some shit that you haven’t flipped on this one.

Three years ago, you were pretty clear about your stand on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

A former war hero, you said you would support ending the ban once the military’s top brass told you that they agreed with the change.

“The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it,” you said in October 2006 to an audience of Iowa State University students.

That day arrived February 2nd, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen testifying to senators after President Obama‘s announcement that he would seek a congressional repeal of the 15-year-old policy.

Mullen called repealing the policy, which bans openly gay men and lesbians from serving, “the right thing to do” and said he was personally troubled by effectively forcing service members to “lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

Gates told the Armed Services Committee, “I fully support the president’s decision.”

But you are playing the maverick hypocrite by disagreeing with your younger self. You are standing firm in your bigoted refusal to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

In response, you declared yourself to be “disappointed” in the testimony. “At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy,” you said bluntly, before describing it as “imperfect but effective.”

You came across as a bitter, angry, spiteful old man.

Next on your agenda was a trip down to Arizona, you know…that state you are rarely seen in anymore, like you were in Public Enemy or something.

You proceeded wander along the border with some sheriff from some non-border adjacent county to talk about completing “the danged fence” that would finally keep out all the Mexicans so that your home state could just go back to quietly seething with racial resentment instead of making that racial resentment a central feature of all public policy.

This after having adamantly opposed building a fence for your entire political career. But that’s okay, your fellow Senator from Arizona has got your back!

Oops, just saw this video. I guess he doesn’t. He seems to get a chuckle out your reversal.

Now, in a fight for your political life. You. Maverick. Mother-fucking-don’t-call-me-the-establishment John McCain is just pandering to anyone. ANYONE that can scrape up a few votes for his sorry ass.

Now one of the mindless twits you are so often cozying up to (Bryan Fischer) said on his radio show this week that Hitler surrounded himself with gays (not the effeminate kind, which he persecuted) because they were savage and brutal enough to carry out the genocide.

“So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn’t the Germans, didn’t the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals.

But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after.

So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals.”

And you not only accept this guy’s support, but actually courted it? Really? Really John?

Have you become a flip-flopper due to senile dementia setting in? Because you seem genuinely confused on where you stand on literally everything.

I once knew a man named John McCain. The Arizona senator that was a bit rough around the edges. He seemed to have a quick, cutting temper. But I didn’t mind.

He was a war hero, a man who took on his own party’s leadership when it came to government pork spending. He was a maverick.

Where the hell is that guy?

Ok, seriously now Rand. Just stop talking. Stop. Talking.

You are certifiable, batshit out of your freakin’ mind.

Apart from being outrageously wrong, this latest double dip of news from Rand Paul verifies that he’s either suffering from an epic meltdown or he’s just plain crazy. On last Friday’s Good Morning America:

“What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of, you know, “I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.” I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I’ve heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault. Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen.”

Accidents happen? The CEO of BP didn’t stub his toe on the coffee table. BP has successfully dumped tens of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, destroying both the environment and American jobs.

And I’m fairly certain that they delayed plugging the leak by focusing their efforts on distributing paperwork to locals offering them a $5,000 one time buyout in return for a non-disclosure waiver of liability.

So in addition to opposing a crucial section of the Civil Rights Act this week, Rand Paul is also defending BP? Unbelievable. Not surprisingly, Kentucky Republicans will love him for both.

BUT that isn’t all! There’s more. Much, much more!

Rand Paul is an extreme Libertarian. He is also an “strict constructionist“, or one who is a strict interpreter of the United States Constitution.

He has gone so far as to state that institutions such as the Department of Education, Department of Labor, the I.R.S., Homeland Security and others should be dismantled merely because they are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, therefore the purveyance of the states.

The Constitution is what it is, stop “interpreting” it to fit your needs/desires. That’s it.

Yet somehow just he feels it is acceptable for us to ignore one HUGE provision in the Constitution governing citizenship, more specifically who it is granted to.

Paul recently shared with a Russian television station his belief that the United States should end its policy of guaranteeing citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.

“We shouldn’t provide an easy route to citizenship,” Paul explained. “We’re the only country that I know that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop.”

In the interview Paul also suggested what steps he thinks lawmakers should take to address illegal immigration — one of his ideas being constructing an “underground electrical fence” along the border. The Senate hopeful even mentions the solution on his campaign website in defining his stance on the issue:

Millions crossing our border without our knowledge constitutes a clear threat to our nation’s security. I will work to secure our borders immediately. My plans include an underground electric fence, with helicopter stations to respond quickly to breaches of the border.

Also on his campaign website, Paul supports his position on illegal immigration by citing the protections outlined in the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution — a frequent point of reference for the self-described “constitutional conservative.”

I support local solutions to illegal immigration as protected by the 10th amendment. I support making English the official language of all documents and contracts.

Paul doesn’t mention however, the 14th amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees U.S. citizenship to all persons born in the country.

On Friday morning, Paul campaign chairman David Adams clarified that the Kentucky candidate stands behind his remarks “because illegal immigration is a real problem in this country.”

(Via Talking Points Memo comes video of Paul’s statements on illegal immigration.)

So illegal immigration is the real problem? Even though every drop of data the F.B.I. has shows that on a national level crimes against person & crimes against property have actually gone DOWN with each passing year as the numbers of illegal immigrants has gone up?

Try again dipshit.

Nutjobs like you that think we should “ignore” entire parts of the Constitution out of, at best case, a misguided set of fears or, at worst case, downright racist views are the clear and present danger to this nation we love so much.

When I was 2-years-old I was still licking windows and chewing on bed skirts (I know, I know…some things never change), but this badass Indonesian butterball can work a cigarette like a grand master pimp.

This is 2-year-old Ardi Rizal and he smokes up to 40 ciggies a day thanks to his dad who gave him his first taste of nicotine at 14-months-old. I don’t know whether to weep for his tiny lungs, or laugh at the thought of him rolling up to a group of smokers in his toy trunk to ask them for a hot fag.

A video of a four-year-old Indonesian boy blowing smoke rings appeared briefly on YouTube in March, prompting outrage before it was removed from the site.

Ardi’s mother says that her son’s habit costs the family around $5.50 a day and he only smokes one brand. Ardi’s mother cried as she said, “He’s totally addicted. If he doesn’t get cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick.”

Yeah, that shit isn’t fucking designed to be addictive from day one. Not at all!

As surreal as this all is, and I admit to having felt an impulse to chuckle upon first hearing all of this, it’s an absolute tragedy when Ardi reaches for a pack of cigs after drinking from his mom’s tete or asks her for a light while she changes his diaper.

The government has agreed to give Ardi’s family a new car if he quits. But Ardi’s father, who is about to be named Person of the Century by the tobacco companies any minute now, doesn’t know what the big deal is.

“He looks pretty healthy to me. I don’t see the problem.” Just so you know, Ardi’s father is legally blind and has no nostrils. Or so I friggin’ hope.

I don’t see the problem either. So what if he’ll get a voice box installed in his froat before he can make complete sentences. Regular talking is overrated! So he’ll probably start craving a little whiskey with his cigarette. Bottom shelf booze is cheaper that baby food!

But seriously, the family should take that car from the government and drive Ardi into the jungle to be raised by a pack of fuckin’ wild monkeys. He’ll be far better off.

The scary part, the truly scary part of all of this is the fact this is not some isolated incident we are seeing here.

Data from the Central Statistics Agency showed 25 per cent of Indonesian children aged three to 15 have tried cigarettes, with 3.2 per cent of those active smokers.

The percentage of five to nine year olds lighting up increased from 0.4 per cent in 2001 to 2.8 per cent in 2004, the agency reported.

Child advocates are speaking out about the health damage to children from second-hand smoke, and the growing pressure on them to smoke in a country where one-third of the population uses tobacco and single cigarettes can be bought for a few cents.

Seto Mulyadi, chairman of Indonesia’s child protection commission, blames the increase on aggressive advertising and parents who are smokers.

‘A law to protect children and passive smokers should be introduced immediately in this country,’ he said.

A health law passed in 2009 formally recognizes that smoking is addictive, and an anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages.

But a bill on tobacco control has been stalled because of fierce opposition from the tobacco industry.

Well color me surprised. A big business entity values it’s bottom line over the health and well being of an entire generation of children. I would have never thunk’d that would happen, der der der der.

The bill would ban cigarette advertising and sponsorship, prohibit smoking in public, and add graphic images to packaging.

Benny Wahyudi, a senior official at the Industry Ministry, said the government had initiated a plan to try to limit the number of smokers, including dropping production to 240 billion cigarettes this year, from 245 billion in 2009.

‘The government is aware of the impact of smoking on health and has taken efforts, including lowering cigarette production, increasing its tax and limiting smoking areas,’ he said.

Mr Mulyadi said a ban on advertising is key to putting the brakes on child and teen smoking.

‘If cigarette advertising is not banned, there will be more kids whose lives are threatened because of smoking,’ he said.

Ubiquitous advertising hit a bump last month when a cigarette company was forced to withdraw its sponsorship of pop star Kelly Clarkson’s concert following protests from fans and anti-tobacco groups.

However, imposing a non-smoking message will be difficult in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest tobacco consumer.

Tubagus Haryo Karbyanto, a member of the National Commission of Tobacco Control, said Indonesia must also address the social conditions that lead to smoking, such as family influence and peer pressure.

‘The promotion of health has to be integrated down to the smallest units in our society, from public health centres and local health care centres to the family,’ he was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe on Friday.

Health Minister Endang Sedyaningsih conceded turning young people off smoking will be difficult in a country where it is perceived as positive because cigarette companies sponsor everything from scholarships to sporting events.

‘This is the challenge we face in protecting youth from the dangers of smoking,’ she said in a statement on the ministry’s website.

Just got my lil’ pile of political mail, included one that was particularly misleading. From Bert Mizusawa, quoting President Obama as saying “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English…you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”

(You can see it for yourself right here.)

Nice try Bert. Or should I say nice lie Bert?

THIS is the quote in it’s entirety:

“I don’t understand when people are going around worrying about, we need to have English only. They want to pass a law, we just, we want English only,” Obama told supporters in Powder Springs, Georgia on Tuesday. “Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English, I agree with this. But understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they’ll learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”

“You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual,” he said. “We should have every child speaking more than one language. It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beacoup, right?”

“Everybody is going to learn to speak English if they live in this country. The issue is not whether or not future generations of immigrants are going to learn English. The question is how can we come up with both a legal, sensible immigration policy.”

Sit and spin on that Bert, you shady, disingenuous lying sack of shit.

If you’d like to educate yourself on the matter some more Bertster, after having removed your head from your ass, you can view the President’s ACTUAL track record on immigration as opposed to this fairy tale your spinning in the imaginary world you live in.

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the Presidents sentiments here. He acknowledges a need for the immigrants to learn the language, states that he feels they will learn the language (because contrary to what you xenophobic hicks think they more often than not do) and points out that our children are quite deficient in learning additional languages.

Yet another Republican douchebag in the Rush Limbaugh mold, lying through his teeth instead of having a little honor and integrity.