Every time it’s lit like this I think, “If only…”
Excuse the glare from the Exit sign.
The view from my office window
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Daily Archives: November 20, 2009
Paging Dr. Bassett
Brian Bassett from TheJetsBlog.com called into the studio to talk about the Jets and their upcoming matchup with Cheater McMisunderstoodtherules, better known as Bill Belichick.
Art Attack: Shaq piles on the awesome
Is there a more awesome human than Shaquille O’Neal?
For years I’ve maintained that everything Shaq does is art, and now he’s taking it up a notch:
Shaquille O’Neal is curating an art exhibit set to start on Feb. 19 at the FLAG Art space in Chelsea.
Needless to say, I will do everything in my power to attend the opening and report back here.
The subject of the exhibit is right in Shaq’s giant wheelhouse. It’s called “Size DOES Matter,” and will “explore the various ways that scale affects the perception of contemporary art.”
In other words: Big stuff.
Clearly, scale is an important aspect of my Awesomeist movement, and obviously Shaq recognizes that. And since Shaq is hand-selecting or commissioning every piece of art to be displayed, it’s bound to be the most comprehensive collection of Awesomeism yet assembled.
The list of artists includes Ron Mueck, a hyperrealist sculptor whose work I fell in love with when he had an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, back when I lived around the corner from it. His pieces are amazingly lifelike in every way except their ridiculous size, making them, in that sense, a lot like Shaquille O’Neal.
Jeff Koons is also on the list. Koons also sculpts some vaguely awesome work, but he ruins it when he opens his mouth and starts talking about the meaning. That contradicts one of the fundamentals of Awesomeism: That which is Awesome never needs an explanation.
Anatomy of a useless trade
Paul Vargas at Section Five Twenty-Eight rounded up some free-agent first basemen the Mets should avoid a couple of weeks ago, and noted that Ross Gload was traded from the Rockies to the Mets as part of the monstrous Jeromy Burnitz trade in January of 2002, then sold back to the Rockies five days later.
This is particularly hilarious, because the Mets traded cash to the Rockies as part of the original deal, so basically it was the Major League equivalent of backsies. “You know what? Never mind on this Gload kid. We don’t have as much money in the bank as we thought we did; Mo Vaughn is eating us out of house and home.”
The whole saga must have been a rollercoaster ride for Gload, who grew up a Mets fan in the Hamptons and had only been picked up by the Rockies off waivers from the Cubs that September.
When you think of it, really, baseball’s whole system of roster management is pretty savage. I understand that it’s the system in place, and that I kind of make my living off of it, plus it’s probably something young players are prepared for. And the Major Leaguers are certainly well-compensated.
But man, could anything be worse than to have to pick up your whole life and move just because Steve Phillips says you have to?
Which brings me to the real point about the Burnitz deal. It was a pretty amazing example of the plain redirection of unspectacular players in bulk. Check it out:
The Mets traded Lenny Harris, Glendon Rusch, Todd Zeile, Benny Agbayani and cash and got back Burnitz, Lou Collier, Jeff D’Amico, Mark Sweeney, Craig House and five days of Ross Gload.
The Rockies traded five days of Gload, House and former Met Alex Ochoa and got back Zeile, Agbayani and cash.
The Brewers traded Burnitz, Collier, D’Amico and Sweeney and got back Harris, Rusch and Ochoa.
Burnitz was the only player involved who had been better than average in the preceding season and Zeile, Agbayani, Rusch and Ochoa were the only others who had been Major League regulars.
Collier, Sweeney and House were all gone from the Mets by Opening Day of that season. D’Amico did yeoman’s work in the back of the Mets’ rotation in 2002 and was gone before the next season. Burnitz struggled in 2002 then got off to a hot start in 2003 and was dealt for, among others, Victor Diaz.
Agbayani fell apart in his first year with the Rockies and was picked up off waivers by the Red Sox in August. Zeile played one unspectacular year as the Rockies’ third baseman then left to free agency after the season.
Harris did a nice job as the primary pinch-hitter for the 2002 Brewers, enough to earn him a free-agent contract with the Cubs the following season and keep him stumbling around the league for three more years. Ochoa got off to an uninspiring start with the Crew and was traded for Jorge Fabregas at the 2002 trade deadline.
Rusch, one of my favorites from his Mets days, essentially pitched like a much shorter and left-handed version of D’Amico in 2002, then completely tanked in 2003.
Rusch and Burnitz were the only players of the 11 involved in the deal that were still with their new club by the start of the 2003 season, and only Rusch finished out that year with his team. He left for free agency that offseason.
The teams combined to go 204-281 in 2002. Only the Rockies avoided last place in their division, finishing in fourth place with a 73-89 record.
Obviously there were reasons for the deal at the time. The Mets, for example, had just obtained Mo Vaughn and Roger Cedeno, so they didn’t need Zeile or Benny anymore, and Burnitz was another power bat to add to the lineup.
But man, how much time and effort must have gone into a deal that ultimately didn’t help any of the teams involved? Oh, the best-laid plans of Steve Phillips.
For what it’s worth, the Rockies would later obtain Sweeney, Burnitz and Rusch in 2003, 2004 and 2009, respectively. Rusch and Gload were the only players remaining in the Majors last season, and Agbayani retired from playing in Japan a few weeks ago.
Items of note
My brain says that, as a fan of another Big East basketball team, I should actually be rooting for Syracuse in non-conference matchups with ranked opponents. After all, more respect for the conference should mean more NCAA berths. My heart says screw that, and that Syracuse should burn in hell.
With one Cy Young Award already on his shelf, Tim Lincecum can go about fashioning a bong out of his second.
Chicago’s year-long nightmare is over.
Talk about a sell-Lowe deal! Am I right?
First off, the poll there is hilarious: Would you trade for Derek Lowe? A) Absolutely, B) No way. There is no gray area, and terms of the deal are immaterial. It’s not “Would you trade Milton Bradley for Derek Lowe?” (yes) or “Would you trade a really good sandwich for Derek Lowe” (not unless the Braves ate a huge part of his contract along with my sandwich).
Also, it’s funny how the Derek Lowe vs. Ollie Perez free-agent debate from last season worked out. Lose-lose so far. At the Perpetual Post, Howard Megdal and Chris Pummer discussed which pitcher is a better bet moving forward. Howard won’t give up on Ollie until someone pries his baseball-reference sponsorship from his cold, dead hands.
For no reason at all, here’s some guy’s video for Ween’s The Mollusk:
Tedquarters 