Yet another blog shift.

Yeah, I know, I only moved to this site about a month ago, but I'm once again revamping my blogging. For now on all my sports commentary will appear on my new blog: Nickel and Dime. I want to focus a lot more on daily sports writing, and I'm going to try to post at least once every weekday about Bay Area Sports on this new blog. Playstation Numbers was just a little too crazy and lacked any sort of vision, so I had trouble coming up with any sort of disciplined posting schedule.

That being said, I'm not shutting Playstation Numbers down: I'm still going to try and post on a semi-regular basis here, just not about sports. Look for more postings along the lines of my homage to Chelada (Bud Light and Clamato Juice), plus my usual political commentary and anything else I feel like writing.

Thanks for reading, and please do continue to check back and spread the word about Playstation Numbers and Nickel and Dime.

Thanks,

AJ

The greatest beverage of all time.

While in the liquor store the other day an amazing product caught my eye. This product:



Personally I've been bemoaning the inconvenience of having to enjoy my daily clam juice and crappy light beer fixes separately for years, so I'm incredibly pleased that Anheuser Busch has answered my prayers by combining these two horrific liquids into something that looks like Sunny Delight and probably tastes like salty urine.

Clamato and Bud Light. A product that could only exist in a SNL skit...or a local Hispanic (the apparent target demographic of this beverage) friendly liquor store near you.

Youtube Link of the Day: What else but someone enjoying the wonderful taste of Clamato and Bud Light.

NL EAST Preview

Before beginning my series of MLB division previews, I'd like to highlight my incredibly bad NCAA tourney predictions (yep, no way uconn was losing, and that 13 point UNLV win was a real barnburner). Serves me right for writing about college basketball when I've been mostly following baseball and the NBA for the last few months. Anyway on to the NL East Preview:

1st Place: New York Mets.

Why? They return the same time that should have ran away with the division last year before collapsing to the Phillies, except they replaced the veteran competence of Tom Glavine (13-8, 4.44, 89K's) with the Cy Young favorite firepower of Johan Santana (15-13, 3.33, 235K's against the much better offenses of the AL) and get Pedro back for the whole season. David Wright and Jose Reyes provide the best left side of the infield in the game, the Carlos's (Delgado and Beltran) bounce back from subpar 2007 performances, and John Maine and Oliver perez shore up the back of the rotation by repeating their solid seasons from last year. And Jimmy Rollins isn't repeating the career year he had last year.

What could go wrong? Ryan Church and Endy Chavez are terrible offensive options in left and right field. The offensive firepower of Reyes and Wright should make up for them, but the Mets have to be looking to add another bat in the outfield.

2nd Place: Philadelphia Phillies

Why? Ryan Howard and Chase Utley counter the Mets by providing the Phillies with the best offensive right side of the infield in baseball. Geoff Jenkins, Shane Victorino, and Pat Burrell provide some decent punch from the outfield, and despite the presence of Pedro "the Mexican Rob Deer" Feliz at third the Phillies should have the best offense in the NL. But the Phils won't be able to match the Mets pitching: its not a good sign when your number two starter is a guy you tried to turn into a closer last year (Brett Myers) and your number three is a guy who throws up radar gun readings less than twice his age (Jamie Moyer). Cole Hamels is a stud, but he's not Santana, and even if the Phillies match last season's offensive output their pitching isn't going to be enough to repeat as division champs.

What could go wrong? If Myers can't revert to his pre-2007 form and any of the big three of Rollins, Howard, or Utley gets injured or has a down year things could go downhill in a hurry. The Phillies win games by outscoring opponents despite mediocre pitching, not because they can keep their opponents from scoring, especially in the bandbox that is Citizens Bank Ballpark.

3rd Place: Atlanta Braves

Why? Mark Teixeira is going to hit a ton of homers and Brian McCann is one of the best offensive catchers in baseball, but I don't see the Braves matching their solid offense from last year. Chipper Jones is getting old and is not repeating last year's performance in terms of raw numbers (a 1.029!!! OPS) or staying healthy (513 at bats). Edgar Renteria was overpaid by the Tigers, but he did .332 with a .860OPS last year, numbers that aren't being replicated by his replacement, Yunel Escobar.

Meanwhile the pitching staff isn't getting any younger: Tim Hudson will probably come close to last year's numbers if he stays healthy, but soon to be 41 year old John Smoltz isn't throwing 200 innings with a 3.11 era and 198 K's again. Some are pointing to a resurgance by Tom Glavine but he had an ERA over 4.40 while playing in Shea last year...I just don't see the Braves having the pitching to keep up with the Mets nor the offense to keep up with the Phillies.

What could go wrong/right? If Chipper Jones and John Smoltz continue to defy age I can see a scenario where the Braves make a run at the division: the bullpen should be solid with new closer Rafael Soriano taking over the soft-tossing Bob Wickman, and if Jeff Franceour and Brian McCann continue to develop the Braves could really have something going. By the same token, if Smoltz and Jones really start to feel the effects of age, I could see this team going the opposite direction and chasing the Nationals and Marlins towards the divisional basement.

4th Place: Florida Marlins.

Why? Yes, they traded away Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera. But Willis, despite being from my hometown, is very overrated: we're talking about a guy who put up an ERA over 5.15 and a WHIP of 1.60 while throwing in a very friendly park for pitchers. He's going to get absolutely torched in the AL this year.

As for Cabrera, he will definitely be missed, but the Marlins are still going to be a very good offense team. Hanley Ramirez (.948 OPS, 51 SB's) is just as good, if not better, than Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins at short (it's crazy to think that the NL East teams have the three best shortstops in baseball). Cody Ross, Josh Willingham, and Jeremey Hermida give the fish the best offensive outfield in the division, and Mike Jacobs and Dan Uggla provide some power (if not much in the way of on-base skills) at first and second. The Marlins put up a team OPS of .784 in 2007, and in spite of losing Cabrera, its not hard to see them matching that this year if the young players continue to develop.

Pitching is going to make or break the Marlins in 2008: Scott Olsen has the stuff to be a number one starter, but he struggled mightily down the stretch last year and showed signs of overuse. Andrew Miller (acquired in the Willis/Cabrera trade) is supposedly one of the best prospects in baseball, but is young and unproven: he's looked good in spring training but in remains to be seen if he can get it done when games count. If Olsen, Miller, and the other young hurlers can get their stuff together, than watch out: the Marlins could surprise a lot of people and maybe even make a run at the division. But I think its far more likely that these guys have some growing pains and spend some time on the DL, as the Marlins compete but don't have enough to keep up with the Braves, Phillies, and Mets at the top of the division. But the Fish are definitely far closer to the top of the NL East than they are to the Nationals at the bottom.

Fifth Place: Washington Nationals.

Why? I really like offensive potential of the outfield with Elijah Dukes in left, Lastings Milledge in center, and Austin Kearns in right, and if Nick Johnson can come back from an injury plagued 2007 then the Nats will be solid at the infield corners with him and Ryan Zimmerman at third. But things get real ugly up the middle (Paul Loduca, Christian Guzman!!!, and Ronnie Belliard)...the 6-8 slots in this lineup are going to be downright frightening.

As for the pitching...ooof. After releasing John Patterson the Nationals have Royals reject Odalis Perez as their number one starter, and while Jason Bergmann and SHawn Hill showed some potential last year, this team is going to give up a ton of runs, and Hill is already on the shelf with elbow tendinitis this spring. Chad Cordero will be decent as always closing the ninth, but his save opportunities might be few and far between with the way the Nats' starters are going to pitch. The Nationals are without a doubt the worst team in the national league, and will be competing with the Orioles for the honor of picking first in the 2009 MLB draft. Maybe Peter Angelos was on to something when he didn't want to let the Nationals move to DC.

March Madness

Some thoughts on the upcoming NCAA tournament.

Best first round matchup:
Eight seed UNLV (27-7) vs. Nine seed Kent State (28-6), Midwest regional. Horizon League champion Kent State won the solid Horizon League and has wins over Illinois State (second highest RPI of teams that didn't make the tournament), George Mason, and St. Mary's. Mountain West champ UNLV has wins over San Diego, BYU...twice, New Mexico, and Nevada, and played Arizona tough when the Wildcats where still at full strength earlier in the season. But RPI says it all: Kent State is 21st, the Runnin' Rebels are 24th. Kansas (the one seed in that region) better watch out for its second round game.

Best first round matchup, seeds at least 5 apart edition:
11 seed Kansas State (20-11) vs. 6 seed USC (21-11). Michael Beasley vs. OJ Mayo. Two of the most highly touted freshmen in the country face off in a battle between the Trojans (red hot over the second half of the season) and the Wildcats (cold since beaten Kansas back in January). I think USC takes this game, but it should be interesting to watch these guys compete for NBA Draft position.

Most likely first round upset (11/6 minimum):
Baylor over Purdue. The Bears have a better RPI than the Boilermakers (43-45) and played in the tough Big 12, Purdue played in a weak Big 10 and has a history of mailing in games (losses to Illinois, Iowa State, and Wofford).

Most likely first round upset, greater than 6/11 edition:
Kentucky over Marquette. Kentucky has played extremely well since getting abused by Vanderbilt 93-52 back in February, only losing to Tennesse (2 seed, 2nd in RPI) by three on the road and to Georgia in the ridiculous SEC Tournament game that got delayed by over 12 hours by a tornado. Meanwhile Marquette only went 8-6 in away/neutral games this year, with only three of the wins against NCAA tournament teams.

Most likely absurd (14 or greater) first-round upset:
It probably won't happen, but if you forced me to pick a really high seed to pull a miracle upset I'd say Cornell (14) over Stanford (3). Call it a hunch and throw in a little hostility from a Cal Bears fan.

Predicted upset I'm totally not buying:
UCONN (4) is going to kill San Diego (13). The Torreos are ranked 94th in RPI...that's lower than every single 15 seed in the tournament. UCONN played in the toughest conference in the country and has an experience coach in Jim Calhoun. No way the Huskies lose this one, though I like the winner of the Drake/Western Kentucky game in the 2nd round.

5 seed or higher who has a chance to make the Final Four:
Drake Bulldogs. 10th in RPI, dominated the relatively strong Missouri Valley Conference Tournament, won over Butler on the road. They have a tough potential sweet sixteen matchup with UCLA but the Bruins have played somewhat iffy basketball down the stretch, almost blowing a couple of close ones.

First Number one seed to go down:
Kansas Jayhawks. They have an extremely tough matchup against the winner of the UNLV/Kent State game in the seocnd round, followed by a potential matchup with Clemson (on fire in the ACC tournament) or Vanderbilt (a winner over Tennessee in late February). And Wisconsin, Georgetown, or USC looming in the bottom half of the bracket. The Jayhawks' national championship drought is not ending in 2008.

Its Math, Stupid.

On March 4th Senator Hilary Clinton gained a total of 6 pledged delegates on Barack Obama despite winning the popular vote in both Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island. Six. Yesterday Barack Obama won the Mississippi primary, gaining a total of 5 delegates on Clinton and putting Hilary at a total of +1 in the month of March.

But wait, I'm forgetting something...what about Wyoming? Obama won 7 delegates in that state to Hilary's five, which means that Obama has currently widened his delegate lead over Hilary in the month of March. She is not turning the tide, she is not climbing back into the race, she is falling further behind Obama, despite the widespread perception to the contrary.

Clinton's campaign can spin the numbers all she wants, but she doesn't just need to win Pennsylvania to win the nomination: she needs to win in Pennsylvania by a margin large enough to justify embroiling the party in an extremely nasty fight over superdelegates and whether or not to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida. No matter what Hilary says about "big states" or "ready from day one" she is not going to convince the Democrat leadership to give her the nomination if she's down by a large margin in pledged delegates. And unless Hilary wins by huge (25%+) margins in the remaining states, she's not going to narrow the lead enough to make a viable case for the nomination.

Youtube link of the day: A great Lewis Black rant about supposed liberal bias in youtube and wikipedia.

Another politician bites the dust

If you follow the news at all (or just happened to pass a TV yesterday) you've heard the news about New York governor Eliot Spitzer being implicated as a client of an extremely pricey prostitution ring that featured "7-diamond" rated hookers. The news didn't exactly surprise me, in the sense that politicians are getting caught for this type of thing relatively frequently (see Vitter, David ). It did, however, make me feel sightly depressed: what it is about politicians that makes them get caught up in things like this so frequently?

Clearly, there's an element of hubris involved: one can imagine Spitzer thinking to himself "sure, I busted criminals for this type of thing while I was making my name as a prosecutor in New York, but I'm smarter than those guys and won't get caught." But was this hubris a product of Spitzer's personality, or something that comes with having great political power?

I guess the question I'm generally grappling with is the following: are politicians just normal people who inevitably become corrupted by the power given them, or is the type of person who tends to succeed in politics also the type of person who is willing to believe that they can get away with blatantly illegal activities? Both are in some ways equally troubling possibilities, as one suggests that politicians will inevitably be corrupted no matter their character, and the other suggests that in order to succeed in politics you have to be somewhat corrupt from the get go. Either way we're looking at a scenario where most (or at least a large number) of politicians are corrupt and engage in these types of activities all too frequently.

Another question I've been struggling with is whether or not Spitzer's transgressions actually matter. Sure, they matter in the sense that he is probably going to have to resign for what he did. But should it really matter what Spitzer does with his personal time if he is governing New York well? I think that it does, at least when he is using his personal time to break federal laws, but one could easily make the argument that Spitzer's solicitation of seven-diamond hookers has had no effect on his ability to governor (hell, it might have allowed him to relieve some job stress and actually helped his performance). In the end I think that Spitzer should resign because a politician can't get things done when he's breaking the laws he's sworn to protect, but one could certainly make a legitimate argument that the people are making too big a deal out of this.

(A quick mini-rant: seven-diamond hookers? Reminds of the supposed seven-star hotel in Dubai. DO you really need seven different categories to rate things? Is a seven star hooker really that much better than a six star hooker? Or even a four star hooker? How does one become a seven-star hooker? But I digress).

Anyway we're left with a scenario where yet another politician has betrayed the trust the public has put in him and provided yet another example for cynics to cite when hating on American government, Washington, and the political process in general. I don't think politicians are all crooks, and I think that many people in government (both local and federal) have the legitimate interests of the nation in mind. Indeed, I even think Eliot Spitzer's heart was in the right place, at least when it came to governing, he's done a lot of progressive things for the state of New York. Its just said to think that all that work might be undone because he, like Bill Clinton, couldn't keep his pants zipped.

Youtube link of the day: Some pretty funny pranks from a Japanese TV Show (in Japanese, but you get whats going on...its worth watching the whole thing).

All hail King James, the Warriors lay an egg

I watched some of the Knicks Cavs game last night and saw Lebron absolutely SERVE New York...you know your playing well when fans in an opponent's arena start an MVP chant for you at the end of the game. I still think the Cavs will probably not get past the finals in the east, especially with Boston and Detroit looming large, but if one of the Celtics big three goes down, or the Pistons suffer from the same postseason doldrums that have doomed them the last couple years...Cleveland could sneak into the finals.

The Warriors: what happened last night? I left my computer after the first quarter to see them up 38-25 and figured they had things under control, only to check the score again this morning to find out that they had managed to lose by 9 points to one of the worst teams in the eastern conference. Yes, it was the second half of a back to back game on the road, but Charlotte? Seriously?

The worst part about this game was that Charlotte beat the Warriors at their own game, jacking up (and hitting) a ton of threes and protecting the ball well. Its one thing if the Warriors lose to a team that can bang them inside, especially with Biedrins out: its hard to play run and gun against quality big men who can hit the offensive boards hard and slow the game down. But to be outrun and outgunned by a team featuring Raymond Felton, Nazr Mohammed, and Jared Dudley (18 boards!!!!)? Unacceptable. The Warriors are only one game up on the Nuggets for the 8th spot in the west and have possibly the toughest remaining schedule of all the playoff contenders, they should of taken care of business last night.

Youtube magic of the day: One of the better pranks by professional athletes I've ever seen. Pitcher Kyle Kendrick's teammates on the Phillies convince him he's been traded to Japan.

The Real Hopemongers.

Huge day for the political campaigns, by tomorrow morning the race for both nominations could be completely wrapped up if Obama pulls out victories in both Ohio and Texas, or Hilary could have risen from the dead once again. The late polling numbers are not looking good for Obama in either state: he's still barely ahead in most polls in Texas and only a few points behind in Ohio, but the trend over the last few days has been towards Hilary. I'm hoping Obama cleans up and its all over tomorrow morning, but my gut tells me this might keep going for awhile. We'll see what happens.

In other news, Bob Herbert had a great (and incredibly depressing) opinion piece on the war in Iraq today in the NY Times. An excerpt:

"...the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers."

Remember this when Republicans tell you they're for "responsible government." By responsible government, they mean cutting taxes (something no other president has even done in wartime) while spending trillions of dollars to "succeed" in Iraq: with success defined as the continued presence of 140,000 foreign troops in a country with a population of only 25 million because of the vague hope that some day Iraq might become a self-sustaining liberal democracy. And John McCain has the balls to tell the American people that "To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude."

Thank you for enlightening me Senator McCain. You're absolutely right. The American people don't need money for college, they don't need cheaper health care, and they certainly don't need to own their own businesses when the Saudis and Chinese are willing to spend 50 cents on the dollars for them. After all, what are tangible things like greater opportunities for education and health care going to do for Americans if they don't have the strength and courage to continue to piss away trillions of dollars into the cesspool that is the Iraq War? Who needs jobs when you have courage? Who needs health care if you have the strength to defeat disease all by yourself, without government help? After all, Americans don't need and don't want government, which is why we can spend trillions of dollars to build an ineffective one for the Iraqis.

Barack Obama wants the American people to believe that their government might actually work to improve their lives. John McCain and the Republicans want the American people to believe that the we will "win" in Iraq (Bill Clinton famously said "it depends what the definition of is is" but the Republicans are telling us that it depends on what the definition of "win" is). They want the American people to believe that somehow the economy will turn around even while we continue to waste money that could be spent on improving infrastructure, developing green-technologies, increasing funding for job training programs, and improving health care to make for a healthier and more productive workforce. They want Americans to believe that everything is going well, and that, if we just stick to our guns, things will work themselves out over time and America will be as strong as ever.

You tell me who the real hopemongers are.

March Madness

Some random thoughts to round out the week.

Watched the Jazz Hornets game the other night, and was amazed at how good Chris Paul is. It doesn't really show up in the stat line but Paul schooled Deron Williams, especially in crunch time in the 4th quarter: he made the big plays when they really counted. There is no question that Williams is one of the top 5 point guards in the NBA, and an argument could be made to put him in the top 3, but if Paul keeps this up he has a chance to go down as one of the all time greats. I might even name him as the third most valuable player in the NBA behind Dwight Howard and Lebron (especially when factoring in age).

The Jason Kidd trade doesn't help Dallas. It wasn't an absolutely terrible trade, especially since Mark Cuban has no problem spending more $$$ on the luxury tax if he needs too, but Dallas isn't a dramatically improved team with Kidd on the court. An interesting stat about the Mavericks: they're 25-3 at home but only 14-17 on the road. If the playoffs started today they'd be a six seed, so they better start winning games if they want to improve on last year's performance in the playoffs.

Upon further review, the Warriors would win 60 games if they played in the east. And if last night's performance doesn't convince Don Nelson to play more Brendan Wright, I'm not sure what will.

Jack Cust, starting March where he left off last year....two bombs against the Brewers. I'll keep saying it, the A's have a chance to win 75-85 games this year. And yeah, talk to me again in a month when they're 5-20 at the end of April and Harden, Crosby, and Chavez are already on the DL. But for now I'm leaving in a dreamland where Harden stays healthy and replaces Haren, Crosby finally puts it together, Chavy rebounds to hit .280 with 25 homers and a hundred RBIS, Barton wins the ROY, and Suzuki makes us forget that we felt like we were watching a "league of their own" whenever Jason Kendall hit last year.

Youtube magic of the day: In honor of spring training, one of my favorite baseball vidoes ever. Braves minor league manager Phil Wellman delievers the best coaching tirade of all time after a bad call by the ump last year.