Damned if you do...

SPORTING GOODS

A tour of the Sox blogs suggest that people are happy with the Alex Gonzalez signing. I'm pretty neutral, at least he fills the hole and will give us good defense, but then again so did Pokey and he was useless overall.

Hardball Times' daily news guy Lee Sinins let his feelings be known with the headline: "Around the Majors: Red Sox Help the Yankees."

He points out that Alex Gonzalez will soon join an illustrious list of the worst ten on-base percentages vs the league average, for players with 3500 at bats. That's pretty putrid. Worse than John Flaherty putrid. Hey, two of the bottom six on one roster, sweet!

Edited to add: And that is bottom 10 all time, not just active players.

Finally, a lineup (warning, stat nerd alert!)

SPORTING GOODS

With the Coco Crisp and Alex Gonzalez deals done, the Red Sox finally have a lineup. I agree with Dewey's House that it will look like this:

Coco Crisp, CF
Mark Loretta, 2B
David Ortiz, DH
Manny Ramirez, LF
Trot Nixon, RF
Jason Varitek, C
Mike Lowell, 3B
Kevin Youkilis, 1B
Alex Gonzalez, SS

Bench:
Dustin Mohr, OF
Willie Harris, IF.OF
Alex Cora / Tony Graffanino, IF
J.T. Snow, 1B
Josh Bard, C

Now, I'll gripe about that lineup when it actually hits the field, as Coco batting first goes against everything that the 2004 championship team was built on, but that's not what I want to write about now. What I want to do is use a couple of Baseball Prospectus's favorite stats to guestimate how many runs more/fewer this lineup could be expected to put up (by using VORP), and how many more their gloves might prevent/let in (by using FRAR).

I won't bore you with all the analysis I did, but the key to know is that I adjusted plate appearances where necessary, but mostly just compared new guys' 2005 performance with the guys that they replaced. I've assumed Graffanino will get traded (and Alex Cora will stay), Snow and Youkilis will be used the way Olerud and Millar were, and that Harris, Cora, and Mohr will pretty much cover the at-bats taken by Kapler, Payton, Cruz, Cora, Youkilis, and Vazquez last year. Last, I assumed that Lowell will perform between his 2004 and 2005 numbers. If he repeats 2005, we'll really wish that the Sox hadn't traded Marte.

Anyway, to get to it, I'd expect the Sox to score about 20 fewer runs with their 2006 lineup than they did in 2005. The biggest losing spot is from Damon to Crisp (8 runs), with the loss of Mueller, Renteria, and Olerud costing the Sox 5-6 runs each, considering their replacements. The biggest positive is the move from Millar to Youkilis, which I estimate will give the Sox an extra 11 runs. Cowboy up, Youk!

At the same time, it's obvious the Sox were hoping to shore up their fielding a bit, and according to Fielding Runs Against Replacement, one of many stats that I could have used (as none are perfect), it looks like the Sox would save an extra 10 runs with their new lineup.

So for all the waiting, worrying, and wailing, it looks like the Sox are down 10 runs from last year. That's worth about 0.8 wins. The big question is, can the Sox improved pitching save even more runs than that, to actually improve their outlook? My gut says yes, but that's the next timewaster for me...

Oh, and one last thing. If Lowell slumps in 2006 the way he did in 2005, and gets 600 at-bats, the Sox would be down an extra 25 runs. That would probably be enough to keep them out of the playoffs.

Sound Familiar?

From A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam.

Except for the minority who had specific grievances against local officials of the regime, the peasants were simply responding to whichever side...was dominant at the moment. What all Asian peasants wanted most...was peace and security in which to till their land. They did not care whether those who established the law and order were Communists or capitalists.

Nothing ever changes.

who will play?

SPORTING GOODS

Due to injury/injury risk/not wanting to take drug tests, Barry Bonds and Lance Berkman have dropped out of the World Baseball Classic. That leaves the US with an outfield pool of:

Carl Crawford, Johnny Damon, Jeff Francoeur, Luis Gonzalez, Ken Griffey Jr, and Randy Winn.

Not really a squad that will put fear in the heart of Johan Santana.

I think with A-Rod, David Wright, and Eric Chavez all on the potential roster, it may be a good idea to ask Chipper Jones to play OF, as he has done in the past. An OF of Crawford-Damon-Jones, with Francoeur, one of the old guys, and Biggio around as a reserve, wouldn't be so bad.

Where Gilkey is (almost) King

SPORTING GOODS

Mets Geek has a post somewhat connected to the "Mets All-Time Win Shares" post that I put together a few weeks back, in which they take the top 10 offensive seasons (by Win Shares) in Mets history, and talk a bit about them. Click on over, Mets fans, for a trip down memory lane. Make sure to click on seasons 6-10, as well as 1-5.

Some day in the future anthropologists will discover this post, and will say "hmm, this Bernard Gilkey must have been great at whatever strange sport they are describing here", and Mike Piazza will roll over in his grave.

Wing Closed

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

Even though it wasn't a show that I still look forward to every week, and hasn't really been for the last two years, I still really enjoy the West Wing and am sad to hear that it will be their last season.

For the writers, the good news is they do not need to figure out how to incorporate John Spencer's death in a realistic way that still allows Santos to come from behind to win the election, or figure out how to keep the show running with a Republican president.

Parole for Arrested?

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

Fox has announced it will air the final four episodes of the all-time great Arrested Development on back-to-back-to-back-to-back of Friday February 10th against the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. (Talk about dumping it.) While it is being sold as the season finale, Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori admits a future return of the show to Fox is "highly unlikely."

But there is good news. As we reported a month ago, ABC and Showtime are still in talks to pickup the show. Considering how poorly this amazing, award-winning comedy has been treated by Fox, either of these networks would be an improvement. As long as they don't change anything.

A Million Little Pieces of Crap

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

I've been mulling over how to write about the controversy surrounding Oprah last book club selection, James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. I'm sure everyone here has heard about how The Smoking Gun discovered Frey fabricated or greatly embellished parts of his drug-addled, criminal past and how Oprah basically gave him a pass by saying it was “much ado about nothing.” Frey defended himself on Larry King by saying “Everyone’s memory is subjective. If in three weeks we were both interviewed about what went on here tonight, we would both probably have very, very different stories.” This defense doesn't even pass the sniff test.

Any analysis or opinion I come up with will never top Michiko Kakutani's blistering rebuke of Frey, Oprah and the Me Generation's belief in the flexibility of truth.

Mr. Frey's embellishments of the truth, his cavalier assertion that the "writer of a memoir is retailing a subjective story," his casual attitude about how people remember the past - all stand in shocking contrast to the apprehension of memory as a sacred act that is embodied in Oprah Winfrey's new selection for her book club, announced yesterday: Night, Elie Wiesel's devastating 1960 account of his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald.

If the memoir form once prized authenticity above all else - regarding testimony as an act of paying witness to history - it has been evolving, in the hands of some writers, into something very different. In fact, Mr. Frey's embellishments and fabrications in many ways represent the logical if absurd culmination of several trends that have been percolating away for years. His distortions serve as an illustration of a depressing remark once made by the literary theorist Stanley Fish - that the death of objectivity "relieves me of the obligation to be right"; it "demands only that I be interesting."

And they remind us that self-dramatization (in Mr. Frey's case, making himself out to be a more notorious fellow than he actually was, in order to make his subsequent "redemption" all the more impressive) is just one step removed from the willful self-absorption and shameless self-promotion embraced by the "Me Generation" and its culture of narcissism.

There is special irony in Oprah's having picked Wiesel's Night as her newest bookclub selection. "I make a distinction between what I lived through and what I imagined others to have lived through," Wiesel has said. "My experiences in the book - A to Z - must be true." This is a far different approach than James Frey's, who said alterations were common for memoirs and that he told “the essential truth” in A Million Little Pieces. I can understand, if not condone, why the previously unpublished Frey would lie in order to sell his book. What I don't understand is how Oprah, a woman of such intelligence, influence and power could be so blase about something so important as telling the truth.

UPDATE: My friend LW summed up this whole episode with one word: Truthiness. I wish I'd thought of that.

I hate waiting til next year

SPORTING GOODS

I hate when some athlete, after a loss, will say something like "We are the better team, but they beat us tonight," to try to diminish their opponent's victory. I don't think the Patriots should be saying that tonight, but at the same time I don't think we'll ever know who truly was better, because the Pats didn't even give us a chance to find out.

That could have been a great game, the way those two defenses were playing. It could have really gone down to the wire. But the Pats offense and special teams seemed determined to give their defense no chance. How far did the Broncos travel for their 3 touchdowns, 15 yards combined? Brady was off, players who have been clutch (Brown, Faulk) gave two huge fumbles, even Vinateiri missed. That terrible interference call was eating at me for a while, but in the end it didn't matter. The Pats just didn't show tonight.

I had hoped that if the Pats run was going to end, it would be at the hands of an opponent that was clearly better. Maybe the Broncos are better, but we didn't get to find out. Instead, all we found out was that the Pats played worse.

Think Pictures

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

Think Pictures are very special. They are the kind of movie that you walk out of and immediately head to a bar or restaurant so you can sit and talk about what the heck it all means. Se7en, The Sixth Sense, Mulholland Dr., Vertigo, Artificial Intelligence: A.I., Fahrenheit 9/11, Eyes Wide Shut, JFK and The Usual Suspects are all good examples of Think Pictures. They don't necessarily have to have a twist ending but usually involve some sort of conspiracy. They also always seem to ask more questions than they answer.

I've seen two great Think Pictures in the last month, one I like, the other I love. Let's start with the former because it is in theaters now.

Cache is a French film about a well-to-do couple, Georges and Anne, that starts receiving mysterious packages on their doorstep. The first is a videotape of their home, secretly recorded from up the street. It runs around 2 hours and nothing much happens except cars drive by and we see the couple and their son leave the house to start their days. It is not an overt threat to the family, but it is obviously threatening. Additional tapes begin to arrive. Some are of their house, others seem to be clues about who is responsible. Georges begins to suspect someone in his past is behind the plot. His search for the "stalker" is the heart of the movie.

Cache (which is French for "hidden") starts out as a gripping story of paranoia and guilt. Then, with about 45 minutes left, it loses its hold on logic and practically discards the very thing that is driving the movie: who is sending the tapes? Now, I'm not completely against a movie going out to left field. David Lynch films often do this (as in the aforementioned Mulholland Dr.), but at least his films announce this possibility by being almost aggressively strange from the start. Cache isn't like this. It is cool and controlled and you definitely feel like you are in the hands of a master filmmaker. (The best works of Hitchcock and DePalma produce this same feeling of contentment.)

In the end, I think one of two things happened. Either the filmmaker simply didn't care to wrap up his film with a satisfying conclusion or he simply couldn't. Either way, it feels like a rip-off. Stephen King is notorious for this sort of thing; he comes up with the best set-ups for stories and then can't figure out how to end them properly. ("It" was a giant spider? That whole Hand of God ending to "The Stand?") I don't mind the arty idea of a movie having no answers, that it is really all about Georges' past guilt, I just resent it here. A movie with a set-up this good is like a promise to the viewer. If you go along with it, I promise you a satisfying answer. Cache doesn't deliver this even though it has a "twist" ending of sorts. The last shot of the film is of a large group. The shot holds for several minutes (like others earlier in the film) and we see two characters meet. What are they talking about? Were they behind the whole thing? The wife and I had at least a half-dozen different theories but in the end there is no answer. After much discussion, we agreed Cache was good movie that could've been great. At least that's what I thought. The wife doesn't have the patience for this sort of stuff.

The other Think Film I saw recently was a movie from last year. Primer, the top prize-winner at 2004's Sundance Film Festival, is without a doubt my favorite time travel movie of all time. At 78 minutes, it packs more questions and possibilities into its story than most Hollywood epics. It is the story of two engineers who accidentally invent a box that can be used to travel back in time. First they start by going back and investing in the stock market using tomorrow's information. Then they become more ambitious and begin to try alter the future. Pretty soon the men stop trusting each other and there are multiple copies of each of them existing simultaneously, all with their own agendas. The film is admittedly difficult, especially on the first viewing. But when you start to think about it (and this is where watching it with someone is essential) the more the puzzle starts to piece itself together. There is also a terrific message board on the films official site full of theories and hypothetical timelines. Primer is a stunning work that Kubrick would've loved. I can't think of much more praise than that.

Both these films provided hours of discussion and friendly argument between the wife and I. I know I sound down on Cache, but I really hope I've piqued the interest of some of you. In all fairness, I'm in the minority on this film. The vast majority of critics have loved it. (Roger Ebert just awarded it four stars.) But if I had to recommend a Think Film for everyone that I bet no one has seen, run out and get Primer. It will absolutely be a movie I watch and Think about for years to come.

Strat-O-Matic

SPORTING GOODS

Yes, my darling wife, grown men do play Strat-O-Matic Baseball. And the New York Times even devoted column space to it.

That reminds me, I haven't played in a while. Any challengers?

Snakes on a Dame

WHATEVER

You know you've been living in New York for a while when you pass a woman standing on a corner with a parrot on her shoulder and a six foot long snake around her neck, and you don't even do a double-take.

Sanity Breaks Out

SPORTING GOODS

Fran Healy is officially out as a Mets announcer. This is the best Met news of the off-season. Better than signing Wagner, better than trading for Delgado. Better than anything. This year is my 20th year as a Mets fan and the first without the dreaded, inane, boring, awful Fran Healy. I feel like we're ten games ahead of the Braves already.

F*** Blogspot

In case you're wondering why the site was so slow the last couple of days (especially if you were using Internet Explorer), it's because the HTML program used by blogspot blows. My movie award post would get filled with more redundant tags than I could count and after too many hours trying to untangle the problem, I gave up and forced it to post which screwed the site up for everyone. My bad. Should be in the clear now.

Sergio's 2005 Movie Awards

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

While this year's list is pretty strong, I can't help feeling it is one of the weakest movie years in memory. I hope I am not getting too cynical, but time and again (even with most of these films), I left the theater wishing the movie had been better. Last year's three best films (Sideways, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Million Dollar Baby) were all better than any film this year.

SERGIO'S TOP TEN
01. Brokeback Mountain
02. In Her Shoes
03. Capote
04. A History of Violence
05. Good Night, and Good Luck.
06. Match Point
07. Walk the Line
08. Wedding Crashers
09. Syriana
10. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

BEST PICTURE/DIRECTOR/SCREENPLAY: Brokeback Mountain

When the Oscar nominations are announced, people always ask me why the movies nominated for Best Picture but aren't always the same as the ones for Best Screenplay or Best Director. I used to ramble about how certain movies were "performance driven" or "about special effects" or something but now I know this is total crap. The best movies of the year are also the best written and the best directed, period. (This also applies to editing but don't get me started on how the Oscar always goes to the movie with the most edits.) There are some elements that you can can seperate from a movie (individual performances, music, special effects, etc.) but not direction and writing. This is because they are part of the whole. Everything else is a part. For someone to say a movie is the best of the year but not the best directed and/or written is like saying you like Shake Shack's burger the best but you think Corner Bistro has a better chef or Houston's has a better recipe. It's absurd. The only reason the Oscar nominations go all out of whack in this regard is because of the voting process. And since I'm the only one voting on this list, I have the power to keep the absurdity out of it. (Then again, you may read my winners and think otherwise.) For that reason, my best picture, director and screenplay awards all go to the same film.

Brokeback Mountain was the only flawless movie I saw this year. An absolutely believable love story that displayed more raw emotion than any other film. Sure it was about "gay cowboys," but anyone can relate to the barriers and compromises that keep these men from true happiness. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are superb and the depth and subtlety of their performances has completely changed the way I look at them as actors. Someone said Ledger's performance is as good as anything Brando or Penn has ever done. I completely agree and this is no small praise.

Everything I said about Brokeback Mountain also applies to the direction of Ang Lee and the writing of Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Praise shoud also go to Annie Proulx for dreaming this beautiful story up. Every detail from her short story was in the movie, including most of the dialogue. McMurtry and Ossana have expertly expanded her work. They also deserve credit for being the ones who first believed in this story as a film project. They are the ones who purchased the story from Proulx and thought to make it in a film. They wrote the screenplay and then sold it to Hollywood. (I've never heard of a film being packaged this way.) That it took almost ten years to get it made is a testament to their faith and perseverence. McMurtry is the author of my all-time favorite book, Lonesome Dove, and I am looking forward to him accepting his certain Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Brokeback Mountain was easily the best film of the 2005. While I have no doubt it will go down as one of the greatest and most groundbreaking love stories in film history, if you get me drunk enough, I will eventually admit that Wedding Crashers will be the movie I keep watching into my golden years. So much for the arty movies.

RUNNERS UP (DIRECTING): Curtis Hanson, In Her Shoes; Bennett Miller, Capote; David Cronenberg, A History of Violence; George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck.

RUNNERS UP (WRITING): Susannah Grant, In Her Shoes; Dan Futterman, Capote; Josh Olson, A History of Violence; George Clooney & Grant Heslov, Good Night, and Good Luck.

BEST ACTOR: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

In the tightest race of the year, I choose Hoffman over Ledger by an upraised pinky. Hoffman's incomparable ability to say one thing and mean another is a tour-de-force. The pinnacle of the performance comes at the end when Capote says goodbye to the killers he has come to love and betray. In the best moment of the best performance of the year, Hoffman cries honestly, and lies at the same time. If you haven't seen Capote, jump it to the top of your Netflix queue.

(Though it must be noted that if I could vote for part of a performance, I would vote for Vince Vaughn in the first twenty minutes of Wedding Crashers. He was comedic quicksilver. You can quote me on that.)

RUNNERS-UP: Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain; Joaquin Pheonix, Walk the Line; Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man; Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

BEST ACTRESS: Toni Collette, In Her Shoes

The scene where Collette throws sister Cameron Diaz out of her house for sleeping with her boyfriend is stunning. It is filled with more naked emotion then perhaps any other scene this year and one of the biggest reasons In Her Shoes trancends it's "Chick Flick" label and is one of the best films of the year.

RUNNERS-UP: Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line; Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: George Clooney, Syriana

Clooney's world-weary spook was the heart of a movie that mostly kept its emotions in check. As a man who comes to the grim realization he is being betrayed by the same people he has given his entire career to protect, Clooney's calculated pragmatism is relevetory. He's a close winner over Rourke's amazing lug Marv from the underwhelming Sin City.

RUNNERS-UP: Mickey Rourke, Sin City; Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man; Matt Dillon, Crash; Ed Harris, A History of Violence

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes

I called MacLaine's performance "the perfect distillation of human behavior." I can't think of any more praise than that.

RUNNERS-UP: Mario Bello, A History of Violence; Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain; Juliette Binoche, Cache; Scarlett Johansson, Match Point

MOST DISAPPOINTING MOVIE: Munich

Spielberg's foray into the Israeli-Palestinian crisis was overly repetitive and surprisingly unmoving. So much for it being my most anticipated movie of the fall.

RUNNERS-UP: Sin City; Domino; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mr. and Mrs. Smith

ONE SCENE WONDERS

These actors gave memorable, moving performances in ten minutes or less and were wonders to behold. Any one of them would be worthy Oscar nominees.

Dallas Roberts as record producer Sam Phillips, Walk the Line
Roberta Maxwell as Jake Gyllenhaal's mother, Brokeback Mountain
Norman Lloyd as Cameron Diaz's blind patient, In Her Shoes
Ralph Fiennes as He Who Must Not Be Named, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

BEST VILLAIN: Joseph McCarthy, Good Night, and Good Luck.

The former Senator perfectly played himself in all his pasty, sweating, balding, Constitution-hating glory. Special mention also goes to Cillian Murphy and his crazy-blue eyes which were the best special effects of the year.

RUNNERS-UP: Cillian Murphy, Batman Begins; Cillian Murphy, Red Eye; Ed Harris, A History of Violence; the Martian tripods, War of the Worlds

BLOCKBUSTERS I DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO SEE AND HAVEN'T LOST A MINUTE OF SLEEP OVER

Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
King Kong
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Fantastic Four

So now we're onto 2006. How many more days until Snakes on a Plane?

A real hero...unlike Barry Bonds!

SPORTING GOODS

With FoxSports announcing that the Red Sox have signed Julian Tavarez, I thought I'd do everyone a service and link to this story about Julian Tavarez from a fan who had a bit of a run-in with him.

Tavarez, has had some great moments, most recently when he broke his hand on a bullpen phone after a poor outing. I'm not very excited about this signing, no matter how hard this guy throws.

D-FENCE!

SPORTING GOODS

Manny Ramirez is the worst fielder in major league baseball. At least that according to a new analysis done by David Gassko over at Hardball Times.

Defense is sort of the last frontier for statistical analysis, because there are less concrete measures to define what a player should and shouldn't get to, how good his arm is, etc. So all defensive stats need to be taken with a grain of salt, and they can be very hard to understand some times.

But that said, I found this observation interesting:

"four guys end up with a projection of below .230, which is something like a threshold for playing defense at all (replacement level, if you will). Those players are Russ Adams, Manny Ramirez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Michael Young. Adams and Young should be moved to easier positions; Ramirez and Griffey should DH."

And of course, the kickers:

"position-adjusted, Ramirez would be the worst fielder in the MLB."

and

"The Cincinnati Reds, for example, probably have no idea that Ken Griffey Jr.’s defense completely negates his offensive contributions."

Mets all time win shares

SPORTING GOODS

Carlos Beltran has six more years. David Wright and Jose Reyes will hopefully be playing at Shea well into the next decade. So there will hopefully be real changes to this list in the future.

In the meantime, Piazza and Franco are finally done, and I imagine that players like Cliff Floyd may be starting to sniff the Mets top 25 all time win shares. Let's take a look. Yankees and Sox were done previously.

1. Tom Seaver - 266
2. Darryl Strawberry - 195
3. Howard Johnson - 169
3. Edgardo Alfonzo - 169
5. Jerry Koosman - 163
6. Dwight Gooden - 154

A kind of strange top 6. The two old-time aces who pitched together for the Mets, the two 80s stars / disappointments who will forever be linked, and more recent fan favorites HoJo and Alfonzo, who I'm surprised to see this high. Howard Johnson's 1989 season is the tops in Mets history; Alfonzo's 2000 season is 2nd.

7. Mike Piazza - 149
8. Keith Hernandez - 142
9. Cleon Jones - 141
10. Ed Kranepool - 132
10. (tie) Mookie Wilson - 132

Anyone else surprised to see Piazza so low? For perspective, his Mets win share total is less than Darren Daulton's for the Phillies. I find that very surprising. Meanwhile, Mookie did more than just hit a slow chopper down the first base line.

12. Bud Harrelson - 130
13. Jerry Grote - 116
14. Kevin McReynolds - 114
15. Lee Mazzilli - 104

Yep, when you've been around for less than 50 years, the all-time list deteriorates pretty fast. At least you have some failed managers in this grouping.

16. Sid Fernandez - 101
17. Jon Matlack - 99
18. John Franco - 98
19. Wayne Garrett - 97
20. Al Leiter - 95

Leiter's 1998 and 2000 were quite good, but he would compare unfavorably to a guy like Tim Wakefield for the rest of his years in Queens. Franco barely moved after 2001, he had been tied with Piazza at the time.

21. Rusty Staub - 93
22. Dave Magadan - 91
23. John Stearns - 89
24. John Olerud - 87
25. Tommie Agee - 86

Benitez couldn't quite get on to this illustrious list. So like I said, if Wright, Reyes, Beltran, etc. don't start climbing this list quickly, it will be a big disappointment.

If you're counting...

Cliff Floyd - 55
David Wright - 37
Jose Reyes - 34
Carlos Beltran - 23
Pedro Martinez - 18
Mr. Koo - 1

Somebody Does Something Right

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

Jon Stewart is hosting this year's Oscars. Hopefully they can sneak Corddry in there somewhere.

Strike up the Brass Bonanza!

SPORTING GOODS

Early steps in bringing the Whale back to Hartford are being taken by a Hartford developer.

Strike up the Brass Bonanza!!!

The return of Marcus

SPORTING GOODS

After a disappointing loss last night, and a wonderful performance by Marquette's star Steve "don't call me Bob" Novak, UConn sits alone in last place in the Big East. Strange place for the #2 team in the country to be.

Marcus Williams returns from his suspension with the following line: 23 minutes, 4 points, 7 assists, 2 steals, and 3 turnovers.

Jim Calhoun has an excellent way of kicking his team's ass when they need it. If I were a betting man, I'd give any amount of points to LSU for Saturday's game at home, as I expect UConn to just blow them out of the building.

Save Our Bluths

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

For those of you who were left somewhat confused by last night's episode of Arrested Development, here's one random blogs' take on it. Sounds OK to me.

Great episode. Strange episode. What else is new?

Red Sox All-Time Win Shares

SPORTING GOODS

Time to put the current Red Sox in perspective with their all-time "teammates," using Sox career Win Shares as a measure of relative contribution. I looked at the Yankees here.

Big difference between the Sox and Yankees, is that the Sox only have two players (Teddy Ballgame and Yaz) with more Win Shares than the Yankees fifth highest (Berra). But the other difference is that one can look at the top 25 Win Shares producers in Boston and find no current Sox.

So, if you're interested, you can see the top 25 here, since there is no update needed after 2005. Last year, I noted that Nomar (15th) and Pedro's (25th) counts would be stalling, and that Boggs should enter the HOF in a Sox cap.

But with those issues done and gone, there isn't much new to say, so here's a look at where active players stand in terms of Win Shares in a Sox uniform.

25. Mike Greenwell / Pedro Martinez (tie) - 146

Player - Win Shares (years until catching Pedro and Gator)
Manny Ramirez - 144 (1) One more year from Manny, if it happens at all, and he could jump all the way to 15, passing Nomar.
Tim Wakefield - 126 (2) Tim only averages 11 per year. Slow and steady.
Trot Nixon - 100 (3) He has been very consistent, but his only poor year happened to coincide with a certain World Series title.
Jason Varitek - 98 (3) The Captain has increased his Win Share total six straight years.
Johnny Damon - 90 (3) Smell ya later.
David Ortiz - 71 (3) He has improved each year.

So besides Manny, there are several guys 2-3 years away from even cracking the Red Sox all time top 25. In any case, these guys will be remembered more for 2004 than for how their Sox career compared to Bob Stanley, Mike Greenwell, and Mo Vaughn.