Mister Faded Glory | The critique of everything

“Have the computers seen us play?”

Kirk Ferentz, reacting to Iowa’s No. 1 aggregate computer ranking

In a hopelessly odd game, the Hawkeyes came away with another improbable victory. Yes, we Hawkeye fans agree, this is getting ridiculous. As we’ve said, though, a win is a win.

And no Iowa fan thinks we’re the best in the country…just that any 9-0 Big Ten team (yes, including Iowa) deserves to be part of the discussion. Sorry to ruin your half-wit knee-jerk blogging.

In a sleepwalking effort against the Indiana Hoosiers, Iowa overcame horrific decisions by Ricky Stanzi and two bad special-teams plays to earn their ninth win of the season.

In other news, you can’t flip the switch every single time and assume the lights will be on. Iowa’s bootleg fake to Wegher and option pass would have worked every single time … but only after the Hawkeyes stopped sending a man deep for Stanzi to launch it up for grabs. You shouldn’t win making the type of mistakes Ricky Stanzi did today, nor the type of mistakes Iowa made everywhere today … but they did. (By the way, in the SEC, that’s resilience. In the Big Ten, it’s ineptitude. Just so we’re clear.)

Weirdly, even though Indiana had the chance to go up 28-7, the game never felt out of reach. (Though, full disclosure, we reached for Rolaids several times.)

Regardless, Iowa is 9-0. Everyone should be happy; Hawkeye fans get the improbable win, national haters get the chance to add fuel to their fire. Get ready for more “Iowa can’t beat USC on a neutral field” nonsense this week from Colin Cowherd, Around the Horn, Gregg Doyel, and all their friends.

(Incidentally, why no assuming USC is a fraud? They barely beat Ohio State, who lost to Purdue, who got smoked by Wisconsin, who Iowa easily defeated. Are we playing that pointless game?)

On Iowa. Go Hawkeyes. I think we’re actually at the point where the national hatred becomes amusing, right? (cracks beer.)

Suffice it to say I strive to avoid the perception of a knee-jerk reactionary college football fan. After all, in a sport that creates disgruntled fans week after week, we can’t wallow in that petty griping or tooth-gnashing. I’d like to think I’m above it.

In fact, it’s a great year so far for us Hawkeye fans. Looking at the schedule, if you would have said “the Hawkeyes will go 2-2 in road games at Happy Valley, Madison, East Lansing, and Columbus,” I would have snatched that up. Most Iowa fans would have.

But now here we are. After a thrilling victory against Michigan State – one for the ages, even – Iowa is 8-0. So it’s easy to be content. But it’s just as easy to fly off the handle – it’s what college football fans do.

Maybe you fly off the handle as ESPN leads its Monday coverage with an article about mediocre LSU controlling its National Championship destiny. Maybe you fly off the handle after reading major-site commentary, featuring all sorts of Wolverine, Spartan, Nittany Lion, and Badger fans shouting to no one in particular that the Hawkeyes “aren’t that good,” and just “got lucky.” Maybe, like me, you simply read one of your favorite sports blogs, spouting a ridiculous, condescending, insulting reaction to the success – and affirmed computer success – of a mid-tier Midwestern school. Let’s all calm down.

The national championship will not happen tomorrow. It will not occur next week. It’s an imperfect end to an imperfect season, and tooth-gnashing over the success of an unheralded program comes with the no-playoff territory.

But, I don’t intend to carry a Tiger-sized chip on my shoulder, or exploit any Midwestern inferiority complex. Iowa is 8-0, and ranked an average of first by the computer portion of the BCS (Fourth total.). Great for them. There’s a lot of work yet to be done.

I certainly don’t assume Iowa is the best team in the nation. But they might be. And they have just as much a claim to that fork in the road as Florida, Alabama, Texas, Texas Christian, Cincinnati or Boise State, all of whom have survived and advanced at various points (Arkansas? Tennessee? Colorado?). No one is perfect, regardless of how fat certain schools got off preseason pollster expectations. Would this be Penn State, a national media wouldn’t bat an eyelash at its No.1 computer ranking.

But it’s not. Guess what? I’m OK with that. Four games to go, and each one is bigger than the last.

On Iowa.

(Also, The Big Lead now joins Slate in our doghouse. You can find better college football coverage in People magazine, for crying out loud. I’m breathlessly awaiting their wistful post hoping for an Alabama vs. Florida national title rematch right after the SEC Championship. Guess we’re not as above petty griping as we thought. )

Give credit to those ridiculous contrarians at Slate. Just when I think they can’t be more aggravating or contrived, they churn out reactionary tripe like this: Creed is Good.

(Up next from Slate: 9/11 – Was it really all that bad?)

Give them a hand. While we waited for the phony revolutionaries of the reactionary to again roll their eyes and bag on the latest fad ranging from the genius to the sublime (Slate Explainer: Cuddly Kittens Are Evil!), they decide differently, and pony up 2000 words of schlocky praise for the worst band of all fucking time, who no one cares about or likes or even considered since 1997. Horrific.

In other news, I apologize, it’s been somewhat sparse around here lately. Believe it or not, Mister Faded Glory is busy with other things in the traditional media/publishing world. Not that you care. And don’t think we didn’t notice, Entertainment Weekly, that you rated Batman No. 18 on the list of Coolest All-Time Heroes in Pop Culture. Right behind Nancy Drew? Eighteenth? Excuse me, I feel faint.

Also, we’d be remiss if we did not wish a happy birthday to Pearl Jam. Nineteen today. Wow, I guess we’re all getting old. Luckily we all still rock harder than ever.

I see you laughing.

I know, I know, I owe us all, probably. Who knows, maybe I’m ecstatic at the Cardinals meltdown or the sublime dismissal of TEAM NON GRATA, making the playoffs somewhat (OK, much) more bearable.

Also possible is that my incessant listens to Unthought Known and Amongst the Waves relax my mood and hinting at hopeful futures. cascading peaks and impeccable lyrics perfectly nestle into my brain,

Or perhaps I’ve even found a unique peace, having just turned 32. Not a young age, not an old age. Still, I remember, as a child, thinking 32 was a super-cool age. Boy, when I get big and grown up and 32, I’ll be able to do whatever I want.

This was probably a result of repeatedly watching Remington Steele along with my mom as a kid, and quietly wondering how old the suave Mr. Steele was. She always said, “Probably 32,” and I just assumed I’d turn out as debonair with Mr. Steele, pouring myself into a tuxedo, cruising through California in a roadster, relaxing in my fantastic pad, replete with vintage movie posters, minimalist furniture, and on-cue fireplace. Of course, I would possess the  effortless abilities to recall movie themes on cue and unknowingly sweep women off their feet.

So glad some things turn out as planned.

Regardless, we do enough bitching and moaning around here to fill two blogs (or seven Twitter feeds), but we never do enough shout-outs. First up is Andy Dolan’s post at Desipio, also linked above, written shortly after the St. Louis demise of 2009.

Far be it for us woebegone Cub fans to overlook the bad karma from cheering at another team’s schadenfreude, but, you know what? The Cardinals deserved it. Andy explains why:

But for a franchise that has enjoyed success on the field, their fans have always been oddly obsessed with the Cubs.  On some level, I’m sure it’s because of the inferiority complex that St. Louis feels towards Chicago and that Missouri feels towards the rest of the world.  When your state is best remembered for being the northernmost advocate of slavery during the Civil War, of being the last state in the union to require school children wear to shoes and for using Mountain Dew as toothpaste, you’re going to need to cling to something to make yourself feel better about

Amen, brother. Worry about yourselves, Cardinal fans. We’re nothing. Step outside of the trailer and roll an extra-fat ditchweed spliff to get yourselves through the offseason. Hint: It will be long.

We also bash Bill Simmons so much that it’s incumbent to point out when he’s right. You might remember us repeatedly eviscerating Simmons for his Michael Jordan hero worship. Friday, he was not quite as starstruck:

Here’s what amazed me: Some people defended the speech! Like, writers whom I respect! Really, you’re defending an off-the-cuff, uncomfortable, petty, biting, rambling, vindictive, score-settling speech during what’s meant to be nothing more than a celebration? That was a good thing?

Jordan’s original thesis was incorrect: Other than when he got cut in high school, EVERYONE believed in him … No athlete was coddled more than Jordan, and no athlete had a bigger disparity between “public image” and “what he was actually like.” Hell, for his entire career, Sam Smith was the only journalist with the testicular fortitude to call him out….

He wasn’t a great guy by any stretch, just a bloodthirsty competitor who cared only about ruining everything in his path. That’s it. That’s what fueled him. At the time, we glorified him for that one quality because we love that stuff. How many times did you hear MJ gushingly described by an announcer as a “killer” over the years? A hundred? A thousand? …

Much appreciated, Bill. Simmons also isn’t kind to our favorite friend Brett Favre in this mailbag, but just as correct. In interest of space, we urge you to check it out.

And finally, The Daily Show rips on CNN, and we “leave it there.”

Everyone ranks teams at the quarter-pole. Everyone does the power rankings, the DVOA, the monthly check-in, whatever. We’re not copying, we’re just happily joining the status quo – In the case, certain the wisdom of crowds prevails, and four weeks actually do merit an accurate snapshot of the NFL landscape.

After 25 percent of our season, there are few teams we know little about. Let’s revisit our predictions and make a sweep of the league. First things first, however.

• Is parity dead? Look around. Only eight teams really have a shot at winning it all, and the rest aren’t close. Look around further – seems like the NFL currently has more woeful franchises than ever before. Would it really surprise if the Chiefs, Browns, Bucs, or Rams failed to win a game? (Yes, I’m sure a few of them square off. Lucky for those viewers!)
• 2. Gregg Easterbrook opines in his latest dreadful column: “If you doubted TMQ’s dictum that a football team’s essence is its offensive line, doubt no more.” Then he started bitching about The Dark Knight and complaining about the Star Trek remake (probably). Well, he infuriates, but he’s right. The best teams build from the O-Line outward. The worst teams fail to grasp the concept. This has always been true, we suspect – but rarely has it been so evident. The Giants, Vikings, Saints and Ravens boast fantastic offensive lines. Are they the best teams in the league?
• 3. When the salary cap and “firing/cutting players” era began, shortly after the 49ers and Cowboys’ 1990s runs,  conventional wisdom generally held that a team could load up for a short window, but couldn’t avoid sudden decimation after the window slammed shut, contracts ballooned, and players got old. (Read: Kansas City, 2007; San Francisco, 2000; Jacksonville, 2001.) Well, this may no longer be true. New England, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore may have actually mastered the art of sustainability — investing a lot in a little, and developing talent through role play and sustainability – all starting within, you guessed it, the offensive line.

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Any status updates in your news feed today reading something like: How can anyone not like Brett Favre, the way he plays just like a kid out there and has so much fun?

No, there is no room for tongue-in-cheek. This sort of nonsense results in an automatic de-friend.

The Facebook police have spoken. As you were.

Speaking of the Cubs and Red Sox, our friend Joe Posnanski offered a quick shout-out to esteemed Boston GM Theo Epstein. Poz rightfully lauded Epstein’s front-office philosophy on RBIs, which the Boston GM highlighted in a radio interview defending J.D. Drew.

“Sometimes you get stuck in the world of evaluating players through home runs and RBIs. … And if you look at underlying performance of a lot of our guys, they bring more to the table than just the counting stats. … J.D.’s certainly having another good year for us … He’s up around a .900 OPS right now …
Based on his skill set, he’s always going to have underwhelming RBI totals. I couldn’t care less. When you’re putting together a winning team, that honestly doesn’t matter. When you have a player who takes a ton of walks, who doesn’t put the ball in play at an above average rate, and is a certain type of hitter, he’s not going to drive in a lot of runs. Runs scored, you couldn’t be more wrong. If you look at a rate basis, J.D. scores a ton of runs.”
“And the reason he scores a ton of runs is because he does the single most important thing you can do in baseball as an offensive player. And that’s NOT MAKE OUTS.
(Via Posnanski, Emphasis is Joe’s.)

I just want to point out that I agree totally with this logic. Have for quite some time. And in fact, it’s exactly the logic much of literate Cub nation called for in offseason acquisition and planning.

And it’s exactly the logic that we used, during three years of urging the Cubs to sign Milton Bradley. We heartily endorsed this move. We begged for it. We celebrated it.

And we couldn’t have been more wrong.

So it turns out there is a place for chemistry, intangibles, clutch, role play, and even traditional statistics in player evaluation, despite what Theo (or Joe) or legions of SABR members would have us believe.

As a test case, we urge the Sawx or Royals to trade for Milton Bradley this offseason. Prove us wrong. He’ll be cheap.

On the flip side, Milton Bradley may actually be the exception that proves the effectiveness of OBP lineup-creation. At least, we hope the Cubs give it another shot. (No, not with Adam Dunn, smart guy.)

I doubt I can put together a decent Cubs epitaph anytime soon. Maybe later. Maybe never. (We’re still waiting for a 4-0 Colts preview, by the way. Um, guess they’re good. The Gonzalez injury is actually a blessing in disguise. Fin.)

But suffice it to say, Chicago and national media may now gleefully begin AutoTexting typical, tired 101-years-and-counting storyline. For crying out loud, we get it. The Seattle Mariners have never won. Go bother them. If the Cubs had won it all in the last few years, I’d still be disgustipated at this stupid season.

I digress. Recently, I was in Atlanta for a business conference (Believe it or not, this blog does not sustain my income) and I had the chance – or misfortune – to discuss baseball over a quick dinner with an unfamiliar cohort hailing from New England, a lifelong fan of the Red Sox.

You know, the Sawx. A punch line for so many years, frustrated with the Yankees’ shadow, unable to break through, torturing their fans, until finally reaching pay dirt in 2004, and extending Cleveland’s misery in 2007. No longer lovable, the Sawx now feature the most obnoxious, emboldened fans in all of sport. It wasn’t so long ago their 86-year stretch rivaled the Cubs’ 95-year failure string.

Between bites of a burger and a baseball discussion, my newfound Boston friend actually said this:

“You know, I just don’t think the Cubs will ever do it.”

Instead of replying “Fuck you with a shovel,” I reminded him that only a few years ago, we toiled in near-misses as brethren. Legions of Sox fans and tormenters whined and whined that history would never be conquered. Dan Schaughnessy wrote 7 books.

Really, sir? You are FROM BOSTON. You, of all people, should know what this is like.

Their burgeoning fan base has forgotten all the torment – and callously peers down their noses at Cub fans, Indian fans, Giant fans. I’m loathe to embrace any Midwestern inferiority complex, but, for crying out loud, what an asshole thing to say.

But it’s not his fault. He is who he is. A dipshit Red Sox fan. I firmly reminded him that luck lasts however long, and eventually we’ll get it right, just like they did. Keep knocking on the door, and you’ll eventually get in. However, as a Red Sox fan, I’m sure this message fell deafly. BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN AWESOME FOREVER.

That’s why, as we enter a horrific baseball postseason (I’ve already punched some douchebag shouting ‘Rocktober!’), the Red Sox are officially anointed as TEAM NON GRATA. We want them obliterated, we want them gone, we want them destroyed. We want their bandwagon fans, now sporting pink “B” hats, to quickly switch to the familiar “NY.” Though we cheered for the Sox’s landmark comeback in 2004 against New York – now we will root for the Yankees to slaughter them. Fuck their fans, fuck the Patriots, and fuck all of New England and the “Nation.”

Although – it does give hope. Really, will I forget years of frustration after the Cubs win it all? Will I be granted the latitude to scoff at other fans?

Er… don’t answer that.