Crazy Week

This has been a crazy week.  I feel like it would be a helpful public service to take a minute here and just sort of review everything. 

First, on Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court announced that they had decided to gut the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  Not a good start.  Now, to be fair, were we really going to let minorities keep voting in the south forever?  I mean, come on.  Plus, this Supreme Court is very into the founding fathers, and if you had asked Thomas Jefferson about this he would have said something like "What?  Why would I let my slaves vote? What's wrong with you?".  I assume those are the two basic arguments opponents of the Voting Rights Act made.  I can't think of anything better.

Seriously though, this was terrible.  It seems to me that the right of citizens to vote should be marginally more important than the right of states to not be minimally regulated based on their long histories of institutional racism, but then again, I'm not a big time fancy lawyer. You may not be a minority voter, and if you don't care about minority voters I can't make you, but just remember that the Supreme Court, the group of people who interpret the laws for your country, cares about the rights of states more than it cares about the rights of individuals, and that's pretty sad.

Also, there's no truth to the rumor that Alabama will now be granting an extra vote to anyone who shows up at the polls wearing a confederate flag somewhere on their clothes, and two extra votes to anyone who shows up wearing nothing but a confederate flag. 

But while that was happening, something awesome was also happening, in Texas (seriously).  The Texas State Senate was trying to pass a bill that would severely restrict abortion rights in Texas, because that's what Texans do I guess.  Tuesday was the last day of the legislative session and Texas State Senator Wendy Davis decided she was going to filibuster until midnight so they couldn't pass the bill.  She started a little after 11AM and kept going with no breaks for like 10 or 11 hours. 

I didn't really see any of the filibuster because I had work all day and also none of the cable news networks covered it and it took me a while to realize it was going on, but I tuned in on YouTube around 11PM Texas time and I feel like I caught the best part.  Apparently the Republicans in the Texas Senate were claiming that Senator Davis violated the rules of the filibuster three times, and in Texas three strikes means your filibuster is out.  The Democrats appealed this ruling and I tuned in while the Texas Republicans were googling "how to make a woman stop talking" (supposedly they were actually reviewing parliamentary rules and such, but based on what I saw my theory sounds more plausible).

They finally started Senating again after about 10 or 15 minutes, and that's when Senator Davis' colleagues started trying to help her out.  First, Senator Older Librarian Lady (I don't know any of the names except for Wendy Davis) stepped up, and she was a whirlwind of parliamentary inquiries.  I'd say she took up a good ten minutes just politely asking questions.  Unfortunately she eventually ran out of steam when she ran into some circular "because I said so" Senate logic from the guy running the Texas Senate (hereafter known as Captain Mustache, though I may be making up the fact that he had a mustache, but he looked pretty mustachy to me).

Then they moved on to debate on the appeal of the ruling that ended the filibuster.  Senator Beauregard T. Crockett went on for about ten minutes until Captain Mustache got tired of listening to him and just let some other guy call the vote on the appeal.  My favorite part of this section was that it took me and most of the people commenting on YouTube about five minutes to realize Beauregard was on Wendy Davis' side.  It was sort of jarring when it hit me.  He was just so southerny and Texasy.  Good for him though.

After the Republicans voted down the appeal, it was time for Senator Hispanic Lady in a Pants Suit, and she was awesome.  Senator Pants Suit peppered Captain Mustache for a good 7-8 minutes with her own hurricane of parliamentary inquiries.  When Captain Mustache finally got tired of her, she finished by asking what a female Senator has to do to get recognized over her male colleagues.  What happened next was, literally, the best thing I've ever seen in a Senate Chamber.  OK, that's pretty specific, but still.

The gallery, who had been super well-behaved up to that point, sensed that the Democrats were sort of out of ideas and the Republicans were getting ready to vote on the actual bill.  Captain Mustache finally stopped falling for the parliamentary inquires and may or may not have turned off some microphones so the Democrats couldn't bother him anymore.  You know what they say in Texas, fool me 114 times, shame on you, fool me 115 times, shame on me.  So, with the vote coming and the Democrats defeated, the gallery, in response to what Senator Pants Suit said, proceeded to cheer and chant for about 18 minutes until it was a few minutes after midnight.  At one point, Captain Mustache tried the old "if you stop cheering we'll stop voting" trick, but the gallery didn't fall for it.

This was fun to watch and really impressive/inspiring, but I went to bed thinking the bill had still passed, seeing as Captain Mustache said it did.  When I woke up, I found out that Captain Mustache is a liar and a cheater and the bill had, in fact, not passed.  The bill will almost certainly pass eventually, Texas isn't getting any smarter, but this was an awesome moment of democracy and I'm glad I had the chance to see it.

That was just Tuesday.  Wednesday featured two almost simultaneous happenings.  Two things which received news coverage almost inversely proportionate to how important they were.  First of all, we found out that while the New England Patriots may not have won a superbowl in a while, they've been secretly leading the league in murders (allegedly).   And that's really all I have to say about that because the TV won't shut up about it and I just don't care.

More importantly, the Supreme Court (remember them from yesterday?) announced that they had struck down a section of the Defense of Marriage Act and had also declined to rule on Proposition 8 in California, effectively restoring marriage rights to same-sex couples in California.  Both of these rulings were, while not perfect, full of all kinds of good stuff for marriage equality.

Here's how you know this was a big day for marriage equality.  Fox News almost completely ignored this story all day.  If you've never watched The Five on Fox, they basically get five of the stupidest people you could ever find (OK, four of the stupidest people you could ever find and Dana Perino, who is adorable), put them at a table and have them talk about politics and stuff.  I watched them for pretty much the whole hour yesterday, they didn't go anywhere near this.  I'm not sure Republicans have any idea what to do with this now.  Even the Roberts court won't back them on homophobia.  It's a bad week for bigots and religious nuts.

Fox spent the rest of the night talking more about Paula Deen than they did about two historic Supreme Court decisions.  Ya know, I was originally on the fence about Paula until she went on TV this week like a blubbering idiot and cried about how you can go ahead and cast the first stone if you've never said something you regret.  You know what Paula.  How about she who has never said the n-word can keep getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to melt butter on TV.  Go away.

And then, as if all of that wasn't enough, today the Senate passed an immigration reform bill.  Sure, it's probably dead on arrival in the House, but still, the Senate did a thing!  I had to check with all three cable news networks to make sure MSNBC wasn't hallucinating.  So it was a crazy week, and here's what I learned:

1) Seriously, cable news is awful.  They spent more time this week on Paula Deen, Aaron Hernandez and George Zimmerman than they did on the awesome Texas filibuster and three really important Supreme Court decisions.  A friend from college pointed out to me the next day that while the filibuster was going on CNN was airing an important discussion between Piers Morgan and Dr. Drew regarding blueberry muffins.

I guess CNN gets a pass, I have a lot of questions about blueberry muffins.  Why not chocolate chips? Can I trade you one blueberry muffin for four mini-muffins? Can you tell me what blueberries taste like because I don't really know?  I guess if I had watched Piers Morgan and Dr. Drew instead of the filibuster, I'd know the answer to these and many other muffin related questions by now.

2) No matter how obviously you murder someone, you can always find people on TV to take your side. I watched like five minutes of George Zimmerman coverage, because MSNBC literally stopped in the middle of a great discussion of the DOMA ruling so they could show us silent pictures of the Zimmerman trial, and you know what I'm already 100% sure of?  George Zimmerman is definitely a murderer (allegedly).  Even if you believe every word of his story, his basic story is "that guy was punching me, so I shot him in the chest".  That's not a proportional response!  I'm not a Florida law expert, but it can't possibly be legal to shoot somebody in the chest for punching you.

3) I will stay up way later than I planned to in order to watch anything that even remotely reminds me of an episode of The West Wing.

4) I think...oh wait, forget about what I learned, because also, I almost forgot about this, the President made a big speech about climate change and said he's going to start doing a bunch of executive orders to get on top of that whole thing.  I don't know if he'll actually do anything, or if it'll actually work, but that was like the 8th biggest story this week.  Crazy week.

Why Are You So Bad At Your Job?

I've been thinking about this for a while and game 6 of the NBA finals was sort of a tipping point for me.  First, Tony Parker clearly got pushed when he tried to make a game winning shot at the end of regulation.  He also flopped, but still, he was fouled first.  Then, Manu Ginobili got mauled by more than one Miami player on his way to attempting a lay-up near the end of overtime.  Manu also took about 4 steps.  Neither one of those things drew a whistle.  Then Danny Green got tackled by Chris Bosh while trying to make a game tying three at the buzzer.  Van Gundy commented that he was OK with the no call but "is that a foul in the first 46 minutes of the game? Definitely!".  That's not how rules work Jeff!

Quick sidenote on the NBA finals.  I guess I'm rooting for the Spurs, but I kind of don't like either of these teams and I feel like neither outcome will save me from a summer of having to hear about Lebron all the time, so I mostly don't care who wins. 

Anyway, back to the point...why is it so hard to find competent officiating for major professional sports?  It's an honest question.  I sometimes feel like the NBA is secretly only allowed to recruit referees from prisons that are full of prisoners whose crimes somehow related to their complete inability to understand the rules of basketball.

Before we get to actual sports though, a quick honorable mention for soccer.  We'll talk about the NBA more in a little bit and when we do, just remember that flopping started in soccer.  Soccer referees throughout the world were so incompetent at discerning the difference between an actual foul and a flop that flopping became something of a soccer tradition, like 0-0 ties or standing around and not doing anything while the game is actually happening.  The influx of European players to the NBA was immediately accompanied by the advent of NBA flopping (I'm looking at you Vlade Divac).  There's no excuse for American referees to be just as useless as European soccer referees, but still, like most things, some of this is all soccer's fault.

Let's start with the NHL because, as usual, hockey is better than everything else.  I honestly can't remember the last time I walked away from a hockey game thinking that the officials had influenced the outcome of the game in any real way.  Hockey officials are the exception that prove the rule.  You could read this and say I just hate all referees, and you could be right, except you're not, because I don't hate hockey refs.

To be fair, there's definitely some built in advantage here.  Most hockey calls are relatively subjective and the NHL has taken concrete action in the rules to avoid flopping and exaggerating to get calls.  Also, most hockey commentators are Canadian, so they're generally pretty nice abooot stuff and they don't kill the refs too much even when they do miss a call. 

Hockey officials also get extra bonus points because A) if you count each skate individually, hockey players are carrying three deadly weapons at all times and B) hockey officials have to know how to skate, making them the only officials I can think of who actually have a skill. 

One more important point here.  Since, when you grow up, you learn that none of your dreams actually come true, I don't live in Canada.  Our syrupy neighbors to the north take hockey at least as seriously as we take football, and I imagine that if I were to walk into a Winnipeg sports bar in January I'd hear Canadians using their awesome accents to politely complain about all the bad calls in last night's Jets game.  So maybe it's all just a matter of perspective. 

Speaking of football, the NFL is sort of a mixed bag.  On one hand, I feel like there's been a disputable or debatable call on every football play I've ever seen.  The NFL provides a constant stream of questionable officiating, and I'm not sure I've ever fully agreed with a call in an NFL game. 

But the thing is, I'm not sure I've ever fully disagreed with a call in an NFL game either.  Officiating football is really hard.  Take a look at the basic situation for NFL refs:
-Players basically assault each other on every play and it's perfectly legal...
-except for the quarterback, who has like one square foot of area where you're allowed to touch him.  -I'm not sure if anybody in the world is 100% clear on when you're allowed to hit a receiver.
-Commentators constantly point out that there's holding on every play, which seems true enough, but you obviously can't call it on every play. 
-The rules change slightly every time someone gets another concussion.
-And there are all these complicated extra rules about eligible receivers and things happening down-field and whatnot. 

It's a lot, is what I'm saying.  Watching a group of guys try to properly officiate an NFL game is a lot like watching your dog try to work the microwave.  He's not going to get it right, but it's not really his fault either.  Plus it's football, so it's not like we're going to stop watching, so who really cares.

Now we come to baseball and this is where I start to get annoyed.  Baseball umpires have the easiest job I could possibly imagine.  First of all, most baseball rules were written 150 years ago.  People were less creative back then, so you have really simple rules like "if the ball beats the runner to first base, the runner is out" or "if a fielder catches the ball before it hits the ground, the batter is out" or "women aren't allowed to vote", etc. 

Secondly, if baseball were moving any slower, the games would be happening in reverse.  Baseball umpires are the only officials I can think of that literally never have to worry about watching more than one thing at the same time, and that's because there are four of them (six in the post-season) and there's almost never more than one thing happening at the same time.  Unlike other sports, baseball doesn't really have things happening off the ball that the officials have to worry about.

So, to recap, the job of a baseball umpire can be summed up as "watching the shiny ball and describing what happens around it".  And yet, way too many baseball umpires are just terrible at it.  I honestly feel like you could train four smart horses to umpire a baseball game and you wouldn't necessarily notice the difference in call quality.  I'm also 100% sure baseball umpires could be 100% replaced by some well placed sensors, a locator chip in the ball and a computer.  Why haven't we done this yet?

Finally, we come to the NBA.  Why is every basketball game I watch an officiating catastrophe?  I don't even know where to start.  You get two steps when you pick up your dribble.  TWO!  Can NBA referees not count to three?  I could replace NBA refs with the smartest kids in a nursery school and get better calls on traveling violations.

And the blocking/charging calls.  I know, that's not so easy, but still.  If you put me in a room where I couldn't see the game and just told me whenever there was a blocking/charging call situation and I just flipped a coin to decide which one to call, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my results and the results we get from NBA refs.  You know I'm right about that.

And the flopping.  So much flopping, so easy to fix.  Just stop making the calls.  Next time a defender dives to the ground like he was shot trying to draw a charge, don't call a charge, or a block.  Just let them keep playing so the offense gets two points because one of the guys on defense is rolling around on the floor like a moron. 

And then there's Lebron.  Yes, Lebron gets his own paragraph because watching NBA referees officiate Lebron is one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen in sports.  Every time Lebron goes to the basket he uses his off hand to clear out his defender (which is super effective for him, because he might be the strongest person in the history of everything).  Not only does he never get called for this, but half the time the defender gets called for a foul for viciously assaulting Lebron's left elbow with his face.  I sometimes think NBA referees all have a secret memo from David Stern which reads, in part, "Our research shows that people like watching Lebron score, so if you see anyone trying to stop him from doing that, just call them for something, we don't really care what". 

You know why people can't stop spinning conspiracy theories about the NBA using officials to manipulate games and playoff series results?  It's because people watching are just trying to think of a plausible explanation for how the officiating could be so consistently awful.  And the most frustrating part is, we never get an explanation.  Why are referees the only people in the world who never have to be accountable for their job performance?  Why don't they have to do a press conference at the end of the game like coaches and players do?  Just once, I'd like to see a reporter get to raise his hand in a press room and ask the lead official of an NBA crew "Why are you so bad at your job?" 

Boston Convert

As I'm writing this I'm getting ready for game 2 of the Rangers/Bruins series.  First of all, if you aren't watching the hockey playoffs, honestly, what's wrong with you?  Whatever you're doing instead just isn't nearly as important.

Anyway, as I've tried to figure out who I'm rooting for in this series, I've come to a shocking revelation about myself.  I think I'm becoming a Boston sports fan.  True story.  It seems ridiculous to just switch all rooting interests to a whole new town, but let's go through it one by one.

The Celtics are the easiest one.  I've always been a Celtics fan, except for that brief period in the 90's when there were only two basketball fan identities (Bulls fan or Bulls hater) and I was a Bulls fan.  My parents were never that into sports (except for my mom and the Rangers, and we'll get to them in a minute), so I inherited a lot of my rooting interests from my grandmother.  Because the Celtics are implicitly Irish, we rooted for Boston.

Sidenote: In hindsight, there also might be something to the fact that, in the 80's, the Celtics pretty much cornered the market on white basketball players.  Really...Bird, McHale, Ainge, Walton.  It's like a who's who of useful or better NBA white guys.  I don't know, I didn't really give that a lot of thought when I was 7.

In terms of hockey, I grew up an Islanders fan.  My grandparents live like 10 minutes from the Nassau Coliseum, and back when I was like 0-3 years old, the Isles were winning four straight Stanley Cups.  So that's a pretty formative experience.  A few years ago I disowned the Islanders because of their many many uniform transgressions.  Since then, I assume in response to my outrage, they went back to the classic uniform scheme and I've been back on board.  But, they're moving to Brooklyn soon.

I'm sorry, I'm not rooting for a hockey team from Brooklyn.  Especially after they change their name to the Hipsters or the Skinny Jeans or whatever and incorporate irony into their new uniforms.  No thank you.  Plus, I'm from Queens, I don't want to root for Brooklyn anyway.

And the Rangers and Devils?  Come on.  Listen, the Rangers suck.  And the Devils, they're even worse.  I had a girlfriend in college who loved the Devils, and even when someone I loved loved the Devils, I still fucking hated them.  They are perpetually unwatchable.  The uniforms are awful, and even though they don't play like they did in the 90's anymore, I can't watch them without seeing that awful neutral zone trap.  Boooooo!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, the Bruins have great uniforms, aren't from Brooklyn and aren't planning to randomly move to some other part of Boston just for fun.  I like the Bruins and I'm not having a hard time seeing myself getting on board with being a fan.  I mean, just look at Zdeno Chara.  He's like an angry giant on skates. Who doesn't want to root for an angry giant?  Also, they have a goalie named Tuukka.  Tuukka!  Come on, he has an extra K.  Everyone knows K is the best letter.  At least it is in Finland, or Sweden, or Denmark or wherever the fuck Tuukka is from.

Football is pretty easy too.  I've always kind of hated the New York football teams, and I haven't really kept that a secret.  In my football watching life I've bounced around from the Houston Oilers (until they moved) to the Tampa Bay Bucs (until they got new uniforms) to just being a fan of the NFL Redzone network (because it's seriously fucking awesome).  I can settle in with the Patriots.  I already have a Patriots jersey (although it hasn't been worn since September, and even then not by me, and the story of how I became the owner of a Patriots jersey is interesting, somewhat embarrassing, has very little to do with being a Patriots fan, and I'm not quite ready to tell it yet).

Oh, and did I mention the New York football teams are actually from New Jersey?  Yeah, that's a real thing.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why people have favorite football teams anymore.  It's like having a favorite character on a sit-com.  It's just a TV show.  When I watch How I Met Your Mother, I don't root for Marshall, I just enjoy the show.  I feel like having a strong rooting interest might ruin football for me, but I've never had one before, so I'm open to trying it.

But then there's the Yankees.  I grew up a Yankee fan.  I've always been a Yankee fan.  The '96 World Series was awesome.  And so were the other three they won when I was in college.  But the last one, honestly, the thrill just wasn't there anymore.  I've said this before.  Being a Yankee fan is exhausting.  Yankee fans only have two emotions, terrible disappointment when the Yankees don't win the World Series, and what could best be described as relief when they do.  To be honest, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a Yankee game.  In some ways, my Yankee fandom has become like a bad relationship that I'm just too much of a wimp to get out of.

Speaking of bad relationships, I can't really imagine what it's like to be a Red Sox fan.  I'm not 100% sure it would really be more fun, but I'm 100% sure it wouldn't be less fun.  Typical relationship dilemma.  Stay with something familiar, or go try something new that isn't necessarily any better and just leaves you feeling like an idiot.  As you can probably tell from the fact that I'm going to die alone, I'm not very good at this.

Some other valid reasons to switch to Boston fandom:

- I live in Massachusetts now, so there are always Boston teams on my TV.  I mean, I could just watch and root against them.  That's essentially what I did with the Red Sox my first year here, but, to be honest, that wasn't a lot of fun.

- Boston girls are almost exclusively awesome.  New York girls are, frankly, kind of a mixed bag.  Don't make that face at me!  You know I'm right.  You've seen Sex and the City.  So if you're in a bar with half Boston girls and half New York girls, which side of the bar would you rather have a common rooting interest with?  Yeah, me too.  I've also found that Boston girls are significantly more likely to be into sports, so there's a better chance of them being in the bar to begin with.

- Aerosmith is from Boston.  And so are the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.  Who's from New York?  LL Cool J and The Ramones?  Similar question.  If you got invited to watch a game and hang out with famous music people, who would you pick?  Dicky Barrett and Steven Tyler or LL Cool J and whichever Ramone is still alive?  Again, yeah, me too.

Look, to be honest, I'm not sure if I can go through with the full conversion.  I'm still stuck on the Red Sox thing.  That's not an easy switch.  But I've already decided that I'm not buying the MLB extra innings package this season, the Yankees just aren't worth $40 a month to me anymore.  So I suppose I'll watch a summer of Sox baseball and see how I feel in September.  I'll keep you posted.

MLB First Impressions - National League

...and now for the National League...

Washington Nationals
I'm not as crazy about Bryce Harper as I think some people want me to be, but the TV did remind me that he's a year younger than Mike Trout, so I guess we'll see.  Meanwhile, Washington added Dan Haren and Rafael Soriano, and Stephen Strasburg should be mostly free of innings limits this season.  Washington looks really really good.  Easy division winner.  Can we force them to move back to Montreal at this point?

Atlanta Braves
I've always said double the Upton equals double the awesome.  Why wouldn't you want both Upton brothers on your team?  Some things worry me about the Braves.  Tim Hudson is 37 and can't do this forever.  Kris Medlen has to regress a little bit, right?  The left side of the infield has a real "who the fuck are those guys?" vibe going.  Still, having an excellent bullpen and cornering the market on Uptons should be plenty to land Atlanta a wild card spot.

Philadelphia Phillies
Can we just fire Charlie Manuel now and get it over with?  On paper, this team still looks like it should be good, except that it isn't.  I've never trusted Cliff Lee, and I never will.  And now I'm hearing Roy Halladay and "decreased velocity" in the same sentence an awful lot.  And did you know Chase Utley is 34?  I didn't know that.  Yikes.  I love Cole Hamels, the rest of this is a disaster waiting to happen.

Miami and The Mets
Speaking of yikes.  Neither one of these teams has any redeeming quality that would allow me to choose one over the other.  If I have to pick one, I'll pick the Mets to finish just ahead of Miami, if only because the Mets are used to being depressing by now while the Marlins are still sort of reeling from the embarrassment that was last season.  The Mets also have David Wright, which I suppose is marginally better than not having David Wright. 

Cincinnati Reds
I looked at Cincinnati's depth chart and thought "Ryan Ludwick?  Still?".  But then I actually looked at his numbers from last year and they aren't half bad.  More importantly, I love everything about the Reds' pitching and they picked up the Choo Choo train.  All aboard for a division title!

St. Louis Cardinals
Word is Chris Carpenter is most likely done.  That's sad.  As for the rest of the Cardinals, there's so much about this roster that makes me nervous.  Jason Motte seems like one of those "hey, remember that brief period of time when that guy was good?" guys.  Beltran and Holliday are both guys who are older than you think they are, but also seem older than they actually are, if that makes sense.  I don't like what I'm seeing here.  Still second place though, because this division is terrible, even without Houston.

Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates are a lot like the Royals only, unlike the Royals, they haven't yet bothered to go out and get some actual pitching.  Also, I don't know if the Pirates know this, but Russell Martin hit .211 last year.  Who signs that guy to be a starting catcher?  I'm sorry, I can't take the Pirates seriously until they start taking themselves seriously.

Milwaukee Brewers
Ryan Braun is pretty good, so there's that.  I'm just so underwhelmed by the rest of this roster.  I thought we had all given up on Carlos Gomez.  Maybe I'll like them better when they get Corey Hart back.  Probably not though.  When does training camp start for the Packers?

Chicago Cubs
Talk about bottoming out.  Is Carlos Marmol still seriously the Cubs' closer?  They had all off-season to think about this and nobody had a better idea?  He's not even young anymore, he's 30.  And I don't even want to speculate about how old Alfonso Soriano is.  Theo Epstein better know what he's doing.  When people in Chicago get angry, shit goes down.

Arizona Diamondbacks
OK, usually when I think Arizona is going to the playoffs they wind up finishing last, so I apologize to D'Backs fans in advance, but I think Arizona wins the west.  Solid pitching, solid offense, solid everything.  Guys like Martin Prado and Cody Ross are really nice pick-ups.  They're the kind of guys you see filling roles on winning teams.  Also, remember the name Adam Eaton.

San Francisco Giants
Yes, Tim Lincecum is zeroing in on being finished, but the Giants still have Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner, and the surprisingly adequate Barry Zito.  I really like this team, no great hitters, but lots of perfectly solid bats.  I think this is actually the best team in the division, but they'll be hurt by some early season Lincecum train wrecks before they figure out he's finished and I think they wind up settling for a wild card.

Los Angeles Dodgers
Hey, remember when everyone said you didn't want to sign Carl Crawford to a long term contact because he'll eventually lose a couple of steps and suddenly be very mediocre at best.  Well that's happening now, enjoy Dodgers fans.  The Dodgers have the potential to be legitimately not awful, but too many question marks for me.

Colorado Rockies
Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki have to be enough to make this team better than San Diego, right?  Right?  I heard the Rockies signed Jon Garland.  That's not a bad move, as long as this is 2005.  Is this 2005?

San Diego Padres
Add San Diego to the long list of teams that decided to try to turn a potentially excellent closer into a starter.  Too bad Andrew Cashner, you would have made a solid closer, instead you just go on the pile with Daniel Bard and Joba Chamberlain.  The Padres are a mess.  Can we relegate them and call up a triple A team?

National League MVP: Maybe if I keep picking Justin Upton I'll actually be right one year.
National League Cy Young: Cole Hamels!  Cole Hamels!
National League Champs:  This is tough.  Look, I'm going to have to pick Washington, but I don't have to like it.  I think the Nats lose to Tampa in the World Series.  There you go.

MLB First Impressions - American League

I've decided to take the baseball previews in a new direction this year.  More brevity, less rambling.  I'm just going to take a look at each team's depth chart on MLB.com and ESPN.com and jot down some first impressions.  Yankees fans, I hope you enjoy this, because we won't be enjoying anything else for the next six months.

Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa finally did what they should have done three years ago and turned a couple of their pitchers into an impact bat.  Wil Myers is a hitting savant, Rays fans (all 22 of them) will love his work.  I do think Tampa will miss B.J. Upton.  I know he's awful most of the time, but he also has those two week runs where he can just carry a team.  They'll miss that.  But the Rays still have excellent pitching and perfectly adequate offense.  Tampa is still the best team in this division as far as I'm concerned.

Boston Red Sox
This Boston team has "wait, how are they good?" written all over them.  You know who the best manager in the world is?  Anyone who isn't Bobby Valentine.  If Ellsbury and Lester and Buchholz can all stay healthy and be productive, I like Boston for a wild card.  On the other hand, this is my last year of patience with Jon Lester.  If he can't get it together this year, then next year's baseball preview starts with "what the hell happened to Jon Lester?"

Baltimore Orioles
I read an article on ESPN.com that told me Baltimore could field two starting rotations with all the pitching they have.  That may be true, but I'm not convinced either one of those rotations would be any good.  Plus, this is supposed to be the year that Buck Showalter leaves and then some fraud comes in and takes all the credit for what he set up (cough, cough...Joe Torre...cough, cough).  With Buck staying, I have no idea what's supposed to happen now, but I'm not convinced Baltimore can make the playoffs two years in a row. 

New York Yankees
This is all so depressing, but honestly, it isn't all the injuries to the offense that have me down.  I think this team can still hit.  It's the pitching.  You can say the bullpen looks good with Rivera back, but how good are they going to look when the starters are giving them 2 innings every night.  I couldn't possibly hate this rotation more.  Why is Andy Pettitte still here?  Go away Andy Pettitte!  Please!  Ugh.  I may skip the extra innings package this season just so I don't have to watch this.

Toronto Blue Jays
What am I missing here?  Toronto won 73 games last year.  In the off-season they added a guy coming off a steroid suspension (which means he'll either go back to sucking like he used to or he'll get suspended again and they'll lose him for 100 games), a 72 year old knuckleballer and the core of a 69 win Marlins team.  I'm having trouble understanding why people think this all adds up to awesome.  I still don't trust Toronto's pitching, and I'll never trust Jose Bautista. 

Detroit Tigers
Remember the first year after Lebron went to Miami?  The Heat spent the season trying to figure out how to play together, then they went to the finals and lost to a pretty mediocre Dallas team.  The second season for Miami was championship or bust.  Same in Detroit this year.  I've stopped waiting for Justin Verlander's shoulder to explode, I guess he's just a freak.  Detroit still has some bullpen issues, but they should be good to go for a division title.

Kansas City Royals
Wild card for the Royals!  You heard me.  The Royals finally have a rotation, with fastballs and breaking pitches and everything.  Just like a real team!  Solid bullpen, and this team can hit son.  I'm telling you, if they weren't the Royals, I wouldn't be the only one putting them in the playoffs.  Then again, they are the Royals, so I guess we'll see.

Cleveland Indians
I had the Indians in the wild card spot until I looked at their depth chart and saw Scott Kazmir in their rotation.  You can't go to the playoffs with Scott Kazmir.  You just can't.  Having said that, this team can also hit.  If Ubaldo Jimenez can get himself together, Cleveland could be really good.  That's a big if though.  In a related story, Indians fans turned out to be the losers of the Who Gets to Watch 600 Nick Swisher At-bats This Season sweepstakes.  Get ready to hate life.

Chicago White Sox
Every year one team just screams 81-81 at me.  It's usually the Braves, but this year it's the White Sox.  Paul Konerko can't keep this up forever.  And how bad does Gordon Beckham have to be before we all give up on him?  He's a .245 career hitter, and last year he hit .234 (that's called trending in the wrong direction buddy).  I like Jake Peavy and Addison Reed, and I hate pretty much everything else.

Minnesota Twins
I can't even talk about the Twins.  Two different websites have Vance Worley as their number 1 starter.  I really can't talk about them.  So I'm going to take this space to bash the Mets a little.  What happened to Mike Pelfrey?  How did they screw that up?  Everything about young Mike Pelfrey said "this guy's gonna be an ace".  Everything about current Mike Pelfrey says "I wish I had played for anyone other than the Mets". 

Los Angeles Angels
I'm a little worried about Albert Pujols, he's 33 and clearly starting to regress.  And I'm a little worried about Josh Hamilton in Los Angeles.  I heard they have cocaine there.  Having said that, I love Tommy Hanson for this team, and Mike Trout is Mike Trout, so I think they win the division. 

Texas Rangers
It was pretty hard for me to find a second place team in this division.  Texas was my natural inclination, then I looked at their rotation.  Then I looked at Oakland's roster.  Then back to Texas.  I'm going with the Rangers because I think they can still hit and Joe Nathan looks all the way back, but I don't see a wild card coming out of this division (which is sad, because they all get to play Houston a bunch of times).

Oakland A's
Oakland's done it with young pitching and a bunch of nobodys before, but that doesn't mean it works every time.  And this time they have to do it without Brad Pitt.  Also, the one thing people always forget to mention about Moneyball is that Oakland never actually won a championship, or even the American League.  I'm not saying Oakland can't be good, but there's a ceiling.

Seattle Mariners
To believe Seattle can contend, you have to believe King Felix can carry them, because the rest of that rotation is a mess.  And I'm not so sure I believe anymore.  Five straight seasons over 200 innings, and ERAs above 3 the last two seasons.  I'm not saying he'll be bad, but 2009/2010 Felix is gone, and I don't think he's coming back.

Houston Astros
Love the uniform upgrade, hate everything else.

AL MVP: Robinson Cano.  I know I said the Yankees will be terrible, and they will, but I think this is one of those years when nobody from a contender really stands out and someone from a losing team puts up huge numbers and gets the MVP.

AL Cy Young: David Price.  I can't just pick Justin Verlander, and I refuse to pick a Weaver.  Plus, if Tampa is actually going to win the AL East, they'll probably need Price to put up Cy Young numbers.

AL Champs:  I like Tampa, I really do.  I know Detroit is probably a safer pick, but I like Tampa.

Pope Me The First

Yeah, I'm going to be the new pope.  And you know what else?  I'm going to be the best pope ever.  Catholics for the rest of history are gonna be like "that Jesus fellow was OK, but Pope Sean was the shit!"  That's how Catholics talk.  Believe me, I know Catholics.

Why should I be the new pope?  Well, first of all, I'm totally qualified.   Don't believe me?  Take a look at my pope resume!

Pope Qualifications

Catholic? - Check (technically, I was baptized and stuff)
Knows the rules? - Check, 12 years of Catholic school baby!
Looks good in big funny hats? - Check
Speaks Latin? - Check.  Well, I mean, I've heard of Latin.  I'm familiar with it.  Nobody knows Latin anyway, I think if I just fake it I'll be fine.  Agricolae...puella...you know how it goes.
Actually believes in, ya know, god? - Hey, is that the first stone I see you casting?  I'm not infallible you know.  Not yet anyway.
Number of times I've been accused or suspected of having sex with children?  Zero.  That's literally never happened to me.  This one feels fairly important.

Qualified isn't enough though, and I understand that.  The church isn't doing so well lately.  The church needs new ideas, or a new direction, or at least a new haircut.  You want new ideas?  I have so many new ideas!

Pope Ideas

No More Church
OK, hear me out.  The book says you have to keep holy the sabbath day, it doesn't say you have to sit in a hot room and be bored for an hour every Sunday.  Church is boring and awful and everyone knows it.  I will decree that whatever you do on Sunday from now on is just between you and the god that isn't really there.  And we'll turn all the churches into homeless shelters.  And we'll sell all the gold in the churches and give the money to charity.  This is a good idea.  Have you seen how much gold churches have?  So much gold.

Lady Priests
This one's pretty obvious, but yeah, we need some lady priests.  And we also need some married priests.  No wonder the church is struggling so much.  Women make stuff better.  It's a true story.  Will the man priests and the lady priests be allowed to marry each other?  I don't know, I'll probably leave that up to whoever I pick to be the Vice Pope, who, incidentally, will almost definitely be a lady.  Oh, and since there doesn't seem to be one now, I'm also adding a Vice Pope.  Make a note.

Three Strike Policy for Sex Offenders
I know what you're thinking, and listen, a three strike policy would still be better than the church's current infinity strike policy.  But no, that's not what I mean.  You don't get two free molestations.  My three strike policy means that the first time you get caught touching kids I strike you in the head three times with my giant jewel-encrusted pope stick.  You will almost definitely die.

Listen, you have to keep this one a secret though.  I want offending priests to be really surprised when they get to the Pope House wondering "Oh, I wonder what the Pope is going to do to me.." and then I beat them to death with my pope stick.  They'll be so surprised!  You don't expect a lot of beatings from the Pope.  New ideas I tells ya!

War!
Don't worry, not an explosions and death war, more of a war of words, and possibly pranks.  Long term, the idea would be to engage Protestants worldwide in a winner-take-all fight with the goal being to eventually have one side win and re-unite Christians.  I'm tired of all these heretic Protestants running around.  It's confusing and I want to be the Pope of everyone.  I'm pretty flexible on the details of what we "believe", so I think this could work.

Be Nicer
I don't know why I have to decree this, but I feel like I definitely do.  We're going to be nicer, like the fellow from the bible, what's his face.  Nicer to women, nicer to non-heterosexuals, and just nicer in general.  Not a lot of cheek turning from Catholics lately, and the Protestants are even worse (remember we're conquering them). 

No More Vatican
You heard me mention the Pope House before.  Well, it's definitely going to be in America.  I'm not one of these people who hates Europe, but you couldn't pay me enough money to live outside of the U.S.  It's nice here, I speak the language, I already know where stuff is and I don't plan on breaking any laws, so I wouldn't really need to be my own sovereign nation. 

And if the Pope doesn't need the Vatican, neither does anyone else.  Italy can have it back.  They can turn it into a soccer field.  Or a million soccer fields.  I don't really know how big Vatican City is.  I'm guessing larger than my high school but smaller than Spain?  That sounds right.

Interfere in the World When Needed
I feel like there are things the Pope could make happen if he just took a minute to give a crap about them.  For example, Pope Sean decrees that How I Met Your Mother has to tell us who the mother is, like immediately.  And it has to be someone really good too.  Seriously, I've completely had it with that show.  It isn't even a comedy anymore.  Just tell us who the mother is so we can all move on with our lives.  You're basically just holding us hostage now.  See, I feel like if the Pope sent CBS a letter saying essentially the same thing I just said, we'd get some action.

Human Resources
There seems to be a lot going on inside the church, and I can't fix it all with my magic Pope powers.  I've decided we need an HR department.  I'm also all for a priest union.  In fact, yes, we're definitely starting a priest union.  And I can definitely afford all of this, just think of how much more money we'll have after we conquer the Protestants.

If, somehow, I don't wind up being the next Pope, I have a request.  I hear there's an African guy in the running.  I don't really know anything about him, because I obviously don't really care at all about this silly nonsense, but I vote for the African guy.  I would like to see a movie in which Morgan Freeman plays the Pope, and as sad as it is to admit, we're running out of time for that.  It may be now or never.  Get on it!

A Brief History of Stupid

Sometimes I feel like other countries wouldn't believe us if we tried to tell them how stupid our government is.  Let's pretend that you, dear reader, are Germany for a minute.  You don't want to be Germany?  A little too aggressive for you?  OK, France then.  No?  A little too surrendery?  OK let's say Australia.  Everyone likes Australia.

Hey Australia, you'll never guess what happened.  In the summer of 2011, our government reached our debt limit (again, this happens constantly now).  That's stupid thing numero uno, by the way.  Why would we work under a self-imposed debt limit?  I can understand trying it once to see if it actually helps us be more fiscally responsible, but that doesn't really seem to be working, does it?  Now it's just an arbitrary number that we have to raise every once in a while so we don't default on our debt.  Except when the President is black, then we have to fight about it first.

So we reached our debt limit and then, because Republicans don't actually understand how debt works, they demanded that spending cuts accompany any deal to raise the debt ceiling.  Actually, it may be that Republicans don't understand how time works, because they seem to be missing the part where cutting future spending won't really help with the debt we owe for past spending.  To be fair, time is pretty complicated and Republicans hate science, so, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

The Democrats though, they don't want to cut spending.  They say they do, because it sounds good and it's always good politics to be for general spending cuts, but they don't really want to.  They don't want to cut social programs because they, ya know, believe in those things.  And they don't want to cut defense because if they do someone will call them weak and they'll lose an election and have to get a real job.

And don't tell me about how the President has offered $2, or $2.50 or whatever of spending cuts for every dollar of revenue.  I'll give you two and a half unicorns for every one of your horses.  What unicorns?  Don't worry, I've got unicorns.  And I've got traumatized workers who helped me make half unicorns.  You can have the workers for free.  They mostly just sit and cry now.

And the Republicans, they do want to cut spending, except not really.  Republicans don't want to cut defense spending, because if we don't have at least a million times more tanks than every other country in the world then we're all going to die.  And they don't really want to cut social security or medicare either.  They say they do, but they know if they actually did the very old people who vote for them would march on Washington...slowly.  That's why Mitt Romney's plan was to start cutting entitlements ten years from now, two years after it conveniently wouldn't have been his problem anymore.  I wonder if the 2023 Congress would have actually gone ahead with Mitt's plan.  I'm thinking no.

So everybody really wanted to cut spending, except that nobody actually wanted to cut spending.  Then they came up with a big, fool-proof plan to cut spending.  It was called...drumroll...the sequester (ohhhhh).  They came up with all the worst spending cuts they could think of and put them all into one big package of cuts that would take effect at the beginning of 2013 unless some people could, somehow, reach a deal on spending cuts that everyone would like better. 

I guess I should talk about why this particular move was so insanely stupid, but I feel like I really shouldn't have to explain to you why an economic suicide pact is a bad idea for our government.

But who would work together to reach such a deal?  Well, get ready for another stupid thing.  Instead of trying something innovative or smart, they just put together a smaller group made up of people from the bigger group that already couldn't agree on anything.  Even though this was a super smart plan, and even though they were called the Super Committee (ohhhhh again), they somehow failed to agree on anything. 

"Then what happened?"  Good question, Australia.  Well, then they all forgot about it and went to run for office for a year.  It was another excellent plan.  I mean, who has time to worry about the impending economic disaster when the gays are still trying to marry each other and Mitt Romney is being mean to poor people?  Not me, and not any of the people who are paid to worry about stuff like that either.

After the election was over and everyone had a good cry, they all suddenly realized they hadn't bothered doing their jobs for a year and this sequester thing was still happening.  "Ohh noooos!" said John Boehner.  They had until the end of December to reach a deal, but they had a much better and much stupider idea.  Instead of actually doing something, they just raised some taxes that never should have been lowered in the first place and then put everything else off for two months. 

Then, and I swear this happened, they sort of forgot about it again for like a month while the Republicans spent time bitching about Benghazi and the Democrats ran around talking about raising taxes on millionaires and billionaires even though they had literally just done that shit.

By the way, I'm not saying taxes couldn't be higher, because they absolutely could and should be.  I'm saying Democrats spent a year whining about how all they were asking for was a return to the Clinton era tax rates, and as soon as they got it, without even blinking, they immediately started acting like it never happened.

Then everyone remembered the impending crisis that they had just created, and then they fought about it without agreeing on anything until finally it was March 1st.  This is where the President overplayed his hand a little.  The White House spent a week making it sound like the sequester was the end of the economic world, when everyone knew it really wasn't.  I heard people on TV talking about how long airport lines would have people immediately demanding a budget deal.  Really?  You know who doesn't give a shit about airport lines?  Everybody who isn't at the fucking airport right now.  And screw those people anyway.  I don't have time to fly around the country all willy nilly, let them wait on line.

Meanwhile, all this economic crisising left Congress with no time to deal with things like gun control and infrastructure and immigration.  Oh man!  They really wanted to do those things too, there's just no time.  If only there was time!

And so here we are.  Minimal spending cuts that won't really help that much with deficit reduction in the long run, done the stupidest way possible, which is to say the government basically closed their eyes and threw darts at the discretionary budget while telling themselves that none of those cuts were actually going to happen so don't worry about where the darts are landing.  At least now that we have this problem, our leaders are working tirelessly to fix it instead of just trying to go on TV and blame each other.  Oh wait.  Nevermind.