Patronizing defense of the ladies

In case you didn't notice--which I assume you haven't unless, like me, you have a raging lesbian fetish--the WNBA season begins this afternoon.

Sadly, I suspect that this could be one of the last WNBA opening days, if not the last. Without knowing the details of the league's financial troubles, the signals are plentiful. Consider:

1. More so than NBA players, many women's basketball players have been looking to Europe (I recall an ESPN feature a year or so ago about Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird making big bucks in Russia) for larger paychecks in recent years.

2. The league trimmed its roster size from 13 to 11 coming into this season.

3. The Phoenix Mercury will have the name of their primary corporate sponsor, LifeLock, an identity theft prevention service, emblazoned on their uniforms this year.

4. Although today's Detroit Shock-L.A. Sparks game will be broadcast on ABC, there is absolutely no mention of it currently on ESPN.com's homepage, and we all know that ESPN hypes the mother-loving shit out of every sport (and non-sport) that it broadcasts, even ones that generate little interest outside of a tiny niche market.

5. As I've just discovered, ESPN.com does not have a WNBA page. Although the dropdown "ALL SPORTS" button at the top of the homepage has a link for WNBA, it actually takes you to the general "Women's Basketball" page that covers both college and pro women's hoops. 

Speaking of said page, check out the "girly" color scheme they use for it:

So who's doing the patronizing now?

Of course, that perfectly represents the way that ESPN's marketing of the WNBA--not to mention the league's marketing of itself (see: pretty much every team nickname in the league)--has, in my opinion, gone great lengths to undermine the credibility of the league. Year-in and year-out, ESPN promotes the WNBA (and the NCAA Women's Tournament for that matter) with some trite "feminist anthem" to play up the image of WNBA players as selfless, wholesome role models and not--just like the menfolk--the highly competitive animals they are. (Last year, I believe the promotional tune was Liz Phair's "Extraordinary," which--as a huge fan of Exile in Guyville--I find cruelly appropriate. Oh, Liz... Once so gritty; how you cheapened yourself!) God forbid ESPN would use a song sung by a man or that actual WNBA players might, you know, listen to. 

To size up this effect, look no further than the dual "Oh, heavens, no! The ladies are fighting!" / "Ooh, catfight!" reaction that last year's Detroit-L.A. in-game brawl mainly received. It was one out of the roughly two instances--the title clincher possibly being the other, though I wouldn't be so confident--that an out-of-market WNBA game was covered by local news outlets, and ESPN, of course, milked the "controversy" of it. I remember Jamele Hill wrote a great commentary on the incident, which I think may have been the only occasion where Jamele Hill trumped Bill Simmons's assorted ramblings and Rick Reilly's hacktastic drivel on ESPN.com's home page.

While I do credit ESPN for bringing women's sports to their market--without which, they'd hold even lower status--the fact that the network has simultaneously undermined the WNBA's credibility for the vast majority of that viewer market has, I think, cut significantly into their efforts to promote women's basketball. And as a man with a raging lesbian fetish, I think that's a damned shame.

So who's doing the undermining now?

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Filler!

Since nobody's posted in forever, I figured I'd throw something on here.

This link is to a great Bill Simmons column on recently-fired Clippers GM and underrated NBA legend Elgin Baylor. Really interesting story, and it once again proves that few people in sports can touch Simmons when he's writing to his strengths.

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Another offseason has passed; a new season has begun... and Bill Simmons still knows nothing about baseball

And I'm still bitching about the fact that Bill Simmons doesn't know about baseball. From the Sports Guy's mailbag column (few days old... just noticed it):

Q: Your stubborn insistence on writing basketball nonsense for months on end reminds me of when Pearl Jam made albums like "Binaural" to purposely drive fans away. The baseball season just started and have we been treated to an SG column about it? No! I'd even read a Red Sox column or a Tom Brady column just because it's not a basketball column. You do realize the baseball season started right?-- Danny G., Kansas City, Mo.

Danny G.--This is the exact opposite of what you should be telling him. It's awful, awful advice. You are encouraging him to do something he's very bad at in lieu of what he's good at. I would say Bill Simmons writing about baseball is more like when Liz Phair strayed from the biting, satirical tone and raw instrumental style that characterized her masterpiece "Exile in Guyville" to take on the sound of a boy-crazed female pop star. Or like when... No--one analogy is already one too many.

(Also, I think making an obscure music, film, or porn reference is a requisite/guarantee for an email to be included in a Simmons mailbag column.)

Anyway, the point of this post was to point out this paragraph:

Todd Jones, Troy Percival, Huston Street, Joe Borowski, George Sherrill and C.J. Wilson make up 40 percent of the league's closers. Would you ask any of those six guys to help you fix a flat tire, much less save a baseball game? I didn't think so.

Huston Street has compiled WHIPs of 1.01, 1.09, and 0.94 in his first three years at the ages of 21, 22, and 23 respectively. I am utterly clueless as to why he'd be included on this list. Also, George Sherrill may have been a one-year wonder, but he did put up a 0.99 WHIP and 56 Ks in 45.2 IP last year. Not too shabby.

And then this:

The AL has three monster lineups (New York, Boston and Detroit), two other very good lineups (Cleveland and Anaheim) and one lineup with a chance to become very good (Tampa Bay), as well as an inordinate amount of good hitters who seem like they're poised for a gargantuan year either because it's a contract year, they worked out all winter, they're coming back from an off-season and/or they're ready to make the proverbial leap: Manny Ramirez, Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, Billy Butler, Delmon Young, Carl Crawford, Alex Gordon, Vernon Wells, Nick Markakis, Josh Hamilton, Robbie Cano, B.J. Upton, Justin Morneau, Howie Kendrick, Travis Hafner ... for God's sake, the list doesn't end, and if the first three guys on that list have career years, their three offenses are going to be insanely, abnormally good.

First off all, I don't think even I've ever written a sentence so long and convoluted. And I write some really long and convoluted sentences.

Second, Bobby Abreu is 34 years old. Manny Ramirez will soon turn 36. If either of them--particularly Manny--has a career year, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams should probably write a book about him.

The moral is: The balance in the AL may lean toward offense this year. But it just shows how easily a bad analyst can exaggerate this gap by using such sound criteria as "could maybe have a career year" or "can/cannot be trusted to change a flat tire" and then lumps together a bunch of names. Don't make that same mistake, kids. Listen to your Uncle Vinnie.

Next time I'll tell you boys all about the time I got punched in the nose by Dick Pole. (Here's a hint: It had to do with his name.)

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How Does Bill Simmons keep getting work?

Simmons hops on the "Holy freakin' crap! Every team from Boston is playing wicked hahd-cowh right now" bandwagon that seems to have been repeated ad nauseum the last week or so.

Yes, Boston College is #4 in the country.

Yes, the Red Sox are in the playoffs.
Yes, the Patriots are pretty good.

Yes, the Celtics have KG.

I'll even throw in that the dirty, theiving $%@#$^!#% New England Revolution are MLS Cup favorites as the playoffs get underway next week.

Things these phenomena have in common: Each team plays in Massachusetts.

Things these phenomena don't have in common: Everything else.

Is it remarkable? Perhaps, but no more so than a scheduling quirk that has the Yankees play the White Sox on the same night the Bears play the Jets.

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Stick to the NBA, Sports Guy (Part XVILVLXXIIII)

When I saw that Simmons answered an all-MLB mailbag this week, I just had to see what Bosto-centric lunacy this unearthed. It wasn't the gold mine I'd expected, but it did offer a few ignorant opinions that I had to address.

2. Manager Eric Wedge stuck to his guns, started Paul Byrd in Game 4 (I thought Wedge was crazy, like so many others did) and pitched his embattled closer in the ninth when he easily could have brought out a lights-out Rafael Betancourt for a second inning, announcing to everybody, "This is our team, this is what we did all year, I'm not changing now." And it paid off. They won. You have to hand it to him.

(Wedge didn't get enough credit for dusting off the Artist Formerly Known as Trot Nixon, then starting him in Game 3 for the simple reason that Trot has ALWAYS owned Roger Clemens. As soon as I saw Trot in the lineup, I thought to myself, "Wow, I don't care how washed-up Trot is, he's hitting a homer in this game." And it happened. Sure, Trot ended up blowing the game open with an outfield error a few innings later, but it happened. Let's make sure that Trot ends up in Clemens' nursing home 50 years from now. Assuming Clemens has retired by then.)

More on his first point following bullet-point 4.

But first, the Trot Nixon thing.

The hindsight provided by the Nixon error aside (managers can't anticipate such things), I'm not sure the hindsight of the homer entirely justifies the start.

Granted, Nixon's career line against Clemens is impressive: 16-40, 8 BB, 5 HR, 5 2B. But pitcher-batter matchups are funny things. 1) They rely on small sample sizes, obviously. 2) As players age, their games change and adapt to the loss of physical abilities, creating an entirely new head-to-head dynamic. I mean, would anyone say that Dwight Gooden vs. Rafael Palmero in 1987 meant anything in 1997? I think the same goes for Nixon-Clemens. Most of those matchups took place when both were in their primes. Both players have seen their skills diminish considerably.

Who does that favor? Hard to say. Consider that Tony Gwynn absolutely owned the greatest pitcher of all-time (no bias), Greg Maddux--39-94, (.415), 11 BB, .997 OPS. Against John Burkett, a decidely less talented pitcher, he went 9-39 (.231), 3 BB, 2 2B, .561 OPS; vs. Ken Hill: 14-52 (.269) .700 OPS.

So sometimes a player will hit much worse against a worse pitcher (in terms of overall numbers) than against a great pitcher. My point being, Clemens's dimishing skills could actually make him more effective against an individual hitter who has also aged, and who is--I don't know--55% as effective as he was in his prime.

4. Joe "Never a Doubt!" Borowski slammed the door on the Yanks with one of those classic Borowski saves -- he gave up one homer and another potential homer that curved foul before whiffing Posada to end the series. I never thought a baseball closer could match the "no, no, no ... yes!!!!" dynamic of Antoine Walker in his prime, but Borowski has to be the most compelling guy in the playoffs right now, a potential successor to Calvin Schiraldi, Mitch Williams, Jose Mesa and everyone else of that ilk. Can you win a World Series with a closer who makes the '96 John Wetteland look like Eric Gagne during his 84-save streak? If you remember, the 2001 World Series champs survived two Byung-Hyun Kim meltdowns in the same series. So it's definitely possible. It's just that Indians fans might be throwing up blood for the next two weeks.

I swear--I'm not out to trash Jo-Bo. As I've already mentioned, I loved him in '03. I admire his perseverence (not getting a real major league gig til he was 31). But he is not good. B.H. Kim has nothing to do with this argument.

Yes, Kim was a little kid in '01 and may have been spooked by postseason play. Or maybe he was just hurt by good hitters getting good wood on decent pitches. But revisionists who believe that Kim was not an effective reliever that year, or that his '01 WS appearance ruined his career are sadly mistaken. He had an excellent '01 season (98 IP, 58 H, 113 K, 1.04 WHIP) and followed that up with an '02 of 84 IP, 64 H, 92 K, 1.07 WHIP. All excellent.

Borowski has done nothing of the sort in his career. Will that mean he'll have a series like Kim had? Of course not. But does he slightly hurt the chances of the Indians winning this series? Undeniably. (Also, Schiraldi was awesome in '86--something Simmons's Buckno-centric mind forgets.)

Anyway, that was about it for refutable comments. Sports Guy spends the rest of the column sticking to the only thing he knows better than the NBA: non-sports topics.

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Simmons on the Tim Donaghy Situation

I'm not a big Bill Simmons fan. Okay, that's a lie. I hate Bill Simmons, I think he's a hack and he epitomizes the frat boy mentality that represents most of what I think is wrong at ESPN.

However, say what you will about Simmons, he does know the NBA. He's got a passion for the game and the league that I respect if sometimes not entirely agree with. I thought his column on the Tim Donaghy scandal was pretty interesting as it makes a number of good points about a lot of the internal problems facing the NBA.

Anyway, it's worth a read, so check it out, boyos.

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It's time to clear out this flophouse

Because I so often rag on Bill Simmons, I always find it necessary to note when I feel he's written a fine column (as if I'll somehow impact his readership or something when he's linked from the front page of espn.com, but whatever).

I don't know about anyone else, but I think the constant flops on the defensive end are the single biggest thing detracting from my enjoyment of these playoffs. For example, as excited as I would be to see the Bulls extend their series to seven games, I grew so disgusted watching Crap-tain Kirk flop on every possession that I found it hard to cheer for them.

In fact, from the moment 'Sheed got T'd up (and screamed "You know that ain't right! That's fuckin' bullshit!" within audible range of the TV mic on his way back to the bench), I watched last night's game as a neutral observer. He was right--that call was fuckin' bullshit, as were the--I don't know--dozen or so times I saw Hinrich or another Bull flop last night.

And to answer your previous question--yes, "Crap-tain Kirk" is the best I've got tonight.

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Yes, Bill Simmons actually wrote this

Credit to the good folks at KSK for finding this gem of egotism:

It's easy to discount the spiritual impact of basketball crowds ifyou haven't attended a playoff game with special fans before. There'sno way to understand it unless it definitely has happened to you. Thenyou know. As strange as this sounds, it's like a woman being unable to tell whether she's ever had an orgasm. If she thinks it might havehappened, or it felt like it kind of happened one time... it didn'thappen. When it happens, they know. Then they feel stupid for all theother times when they thought it had happened.

On a related note, the folks at Kissing Suzy Kolber consistently produce some hilariously funny stuff and should be a must read for sports humor fans. I particularly enjoyed their Brady Quinn and Lindy Slinger(Quinn's girlfriend) stuff. Anyway, after you've vistited YCS, go to KSK and enjoy their wittiness.

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