A Rose by Any Other Number

When two players on the same team have the same last name, why does the team add the first initial to the jersey? Isn't that what the number is for, to tell the players apart?

Hello? Competition Committee?

If the NFL wants to add excitement to its many lackluster match ups (49ers @ Cardinals on MNF, anyone?), then they oughtta undo all these crapola changes they've made to make things "fair," and then change the most ridiculous play in the game: the PAT.

Let's get the easy stuff out of the way. During the last few years the No Fun League changed some rules that haven't done anything to make games more fair, as they were intended to, and have made the games less exciting.

For example, allowing offenses to wait out excessive fan noise is bullshit. Fan noise is part of home-field advantage, it's the 12th player and this is supposed to be the fans' game. Letting coaches call time out is garbage. It gives them too much control, just like the radio helmet communication system. The game is supposed to be played on the field and be spontaneous. Talk about killing drama.

Teams aren't allowed to place more than six cover guys on either side of the kicker during a kickoff. It might give them an unfair advantage during an onside kick. No shit, NFL, that's the point of the onside kick. In the old days (two years ago) the receiving team was free to put 10 guys to one side if that's how the opposition lined up. What's unfair about that?

On field goal tries, PATs and punts the defense isn't allowed to position a lineman head-up across from the center. The D player has to be offset to one side or the other, ostensibly to protect the center who is snapping with his head down. Bullshit. I was a long snapper and even in high school, centers are taught how to hit the holder (or punter) with the ball while keeping their heads up. You look back for the hand signal, then pick your head up so you can see the D (and not get your neck broken), and let it fly. With enough reps, it's pretty easy. Centers do the same thing in shotgun formation, yet this rule doesn't apply to that situation.

Head up or head down, the center is always the weak link in the special teams line. Let the D take advantage of that. The blocked punt or field goal is one of the great game-changing moments in any contest.

Now for the PAT. Worst play in football. The NFL added the 2-point conversion in 1994 to try to add some variability to the scoring and offset the fact that the PAT is virtually automatic. Guess what? It hasn't worked. Teams kick the PAT approximately 96% of the time. That's right from the NFL itself.

There are approximately 1100 - 1200 touchdowns scored in the NFL annually. The 2-point conversion is used 4% of the time. Using the higher number estimate, that means there are just 48 tries for 2 attempted each season. There are 32 teams in the league. That's 1.5 attempts per team, per year! Beyond that, the success rate is about 45% league-wide, that's just 23 conversions - far less than 1 per team, per year. I think it's fair to call this "test" an abject failure.

Why not leave the 2-point option in place and move the PAT to the 20 yard line? That would make it a 37 yard kick. While this distance for field goals is still converted more than 90% of the time, at least this isn't a 19-yard gimme. More missed PATs would also convince more teams to go for 2, which is what the league wanted in the first place. Hello? Competition Committee? Are you listening?

MLB: Screw Dodger Fans, and NL players come to think of it

Riddle me this, Riddler: Why is ALCS game 1, which features two East Coast teams, starting at 8:37 Eastern time, while NLCS game 2, which includes a West Coast team, starting at 4:22? MLB seems to be saying Tough Crap to Dodger faithful who hold regular jobs and won't get to watch Big Blue's game, which should conclude by 4:30 West Coast time.

I'm sure some TV executive made this choice, thinking the Red Sox garner a wider viewing audience, but I doubt that's true in SoCal, the second largest TV market in the country, when the Dodgers are playing.

This bizarre scheduling choice also screams F-YOU to the NL players, who concluded a game at 11 Eastern and now have to play on short rest. The AL players were off last night and could start an early game with no problem.

Shea It Ain't So

Rally Cap made a road trip to scenic Flushing, NY last night to catch the Amazin's and the Cubbies, and more importantly to say goodbye to Shea. A remarkable walk-off ending gave the Mets an improbable come-from-behind win over mostly second-team Cubs. It made for a memorable way to say goodbye to one of the first "modern" multipurpose sports stadiums. It was this writer's first and last visit to Shea and I am so glad I made the effort. Next up are Wrigley and Fenway, but that will have to wait til next season.

The photo is Shea as it looked when it opened in 1964. There's a great history of Shea posted on the Mets web site that I urge you to read. Great stuff for any sports (not just baseball) fan, especially trivia nuts. (1975 - Giants, Jets, Yankees and Mets all share Shea while Yankee Stadium is renovated. It's the only time four pro sports teams have shared one venue in the same season.)

If you want a piece of history you can buy pairs of seats for $869, with all the profits going to charity. The one thing you can't buy is Shea's home plate. That's already accounted for.

What's the ruling on this pass?

Any chance there's instant replay available to review this pass?

Ok, we've all had the urge but you have to admit that the man has some, um, balls to pull this one off.

Jose Cruz from West Virginia is stopped for suspicion of driving while under the influence. He's taken to the local police station where he fires the incomplete -- as far as we know -- pass.

Now he's facing jail time.

Here's more. . . .

What does this have to do with sports? Not much.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

Best line of the week (so far). . . from Lowell Cohn of the Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, California. And yes, he's talking about Raiderland.

"Hey, you think your place of business is crazy? Consider yourself blessed you don’t work for the Raiders."

I know my workplace is definitely crazy but these guys are unbelievable. Read the full story here and check out the affected sportswriters' comments here. It's like Thanksgiving! Can't you just feel the love!

Ryan Howard: Not Even a Whiff of MVP

There's been a lot of talk in the last couple of weeks about Ryan Howard as a legit MVP candidate in the NL. It would be much more appropriate to vote him MLK: Most Likely to Strikeout. With six games left he's on a pace to best his own 199 single-season mark (set last year) by 2, breaking the magical 200-K barrier.

While fanning doesn't automatically discount him from MVP contention, look at the full scope of his offensive output compared to his 2006 MVP-winning campaign. At this point he's played 156 games compared to 159 played in the full 2006 season, but the numbers are not even in the same ballpark (pun intended):

AVG: .313 to .247
SLG: .659 to .533
OBP: .425 to .336

Huge dropoffs in each category. Now look at walks: 108 to 79. What happened to those 29 additional walks? That's right. They became wiffs. Ryan had just (just?) 181 strikeouts in 2006 compared to 194 this year - in three fewer games.

So this clearly isn't a hitch in his swing or anything else physical. This is a simple matter of impatience, perhaps born of huge success early on in his career. (I'd like to find some way to blame this on Pat Burrell batting behind Howard, but that's not the case.)

The remarkable thing about Howard's wiffing is the career pace. If he plays out the six remaining games this year and his numbers remain constant, Howard should have 680 K in 553 games between 2005 - 2008. (He only played 19 games in 2004 so we're omitting it.) That works out to be 1.23 K per game.

The all-time MLB leader for strikeouts is Reggie Jackson with 2597 K in 2820 games. That averages out to 0.920 K per game. In fact, only two of the top five players in the category have averages over 1.0 per game (#3 Jim Thome, 1.01 and #5 Jose Canseco, 1.03).

Look at it another way: Jackson averaged one K every 3.798 at bats, while Howard averages one every 2.995 at bat. At his current pace, Howard will eclipse Jackson's mark in 2,111 games, an astonishing 700 games less!

So should Howard be a candidate for MVP? No, but not because of his wiffs. In 1961 Roger Maris won the award with his then-record 61 HRs and the lowest average ever for an MVP, just .269. His OPB was .372. But his numbers are 22 and 36 points higher in each category than Howard's current stats. Oh, and Maris fanned just 67 times.