Sports!

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I fell asleep on my La-Z-Boy around 7:30 p.m. yesterday after a day spent moping around the house feeling awful. At some point I managed to take my contacts out and stumble into bed, I guess, and I woke up at 7:30 a.m.

I ate breakfast and showered, and sat down on the couch, fully rested and refreshed. And then I remembered:

Sports!

The Georgetown Hoyas, the mighty, frustrating, talented Hoyas, take on the stupid, evil UConn Huskies today at noon, a matchup between two of the best teams in what is certainly college basketball’s best conference, no matter how little coverage it receives on ESPN.

And that’s just the undercard. At 4:30 today, for the first time in three years, one of the professional sports teams I root for will be playing in the postseason. So exciting. I have nothing interesting to say about it, other than that I’m geared up.

I don’t know if it’s the 12 hours of sleep, or whatever was ailing me yesterday passing, or it just finally sinking in that the New York Jets are back in the playoffs, but I am elated. I have no idea what will happen in either game today, but right now, with nothing settled and everything possible, life is good.

The only problem is I want the damn games to start already. And my wings to get here.

Delicious wings and sports.

The phone is ringing, Mark Sanchez. It’s destiny calling again. Pick it up.

Items of note

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I’m sick today and home from work, which means I’m watching the Price is Right, because that’s what you do when you’re home sick, even now in the age of TiVo when you don’t have to. Anyway, here are some items of note:

John Sickels provides his list of Top 20 Mets prospects. Sickels’ list seems as good as any I’ve seen, and I think he’s got a pretty good perspective about the Mets’ system in general. But — and forgive me if this sounds like homerism — I don’t think anybody touches Toby Hyde when it comes to knowledge of the Mets’ minors, so I’m eagerly awaiting his Top 41 for this year.

I will make no comment about this Gilbert Arenas affair other than to say that I really hope this leads to an Al Sharpton Twitter account.

UPDATE, 12:28 p.m.: Al Sharpton has a Twitter account. Obviously.

Joe Namath is appropriately surprised that everyone cares so much that Rex Ryan called his team the favorite to win the Super Bowl.

Let he who doesn’t have a soft spot in his heart for the Expos step forward. The pinwheel hat will always be one of my all-time favorites.

From the Wikipedia: Curse of the Pharaohs

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So disappointing.

From the Wikipedia: Curse of the Pharaohs.

I like a good spooky story even if I think it’s probably hokum, and for whatever reason — some sixth grade history teacher, Scooby Doo, who knows — I really believed that just about everyone who ever opened a mummy’s tomb was dead within a few weeks.

Not the case, it turns out. The Curse of the Pharaohs refers to the legend that any person who disturbs an Ancient Egyptian tomb will be forever hexed by the mummy within.

Stories of the curse really took hold, it seems, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — the Sherlock Holmes dude — started perpetuating them and trying to explain them around the time a team of 58 explorers opened the tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922.

The only problem is that precisely one of those 58 people suffered an even mildly mysterious death anytime soon after the opening — a George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, who died from an infected mosquito bite he cut open while shaving.

Another, George Jay Gould — of the New York Goulds, the railroad people — contracted a fever and died of pneumonia within a year.

But, you know, it was 1922, and people still randomly just got fevers and died of pneumonia back then. All told, only eight of the 58 people present at the opening of the tomb were dead within a dozen years, and I’m willing to guess that if you took any random cross section of 58 adults in 1922, it’d be a pretty safe bet that eight would be dead in twelve years. People still got Typhoid and Scarlet Fever and stuff in 1922.

The Wikipedia — clearly grasping at straws — alternately claims that Howard Carter, the archaeologist in who led the team, either did or didn’t fall victim to the curse when he DIED OF CANCER 16 YEARS LATER. I’m gonna go with “not the curse” on that one. In fact, I’d say it’d be a lot more mysterious if Howard Carter, born in 1874, hadn’t died by now.

Both the Curse of the Pharaohs and its accompanying Wikipedia page are total crap. They are, as Egyptologist Donald Redford once said, “unadulterated clap trap.”

In fact, that phrase coupled with the revelation that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a totally kickass mustache are the only cool things to come out of this Wikipedia endeavor.

I’m certainly open to the mysterious and unexplainable, but the Curse of the Pharaohs is not that. Come back when you’re bovine excision, Curse of the Pharaohs.

Interview: Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

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Continuing a very Second City-themed day of TedQuarters content, I present the type of hard-hitting exclusive interview readers should probably not come to expect of this site.

I was recently included on an e-mail chain that also included someone with the curious name “Elizabeth Wrigley-Field.” I contacted Ms. Wrigley-Field and found she was not only willing to discuss her surname, but quite happy to, and so we did. And this is that:

TedQuarters: Did your parents realize how awesome it was that they were named Wrigley and Field when they met, and consider that their offspring might be named Wrigley-Field? I mean, am I right in assuming that’s how you came to be named Elizabeth Wrigley-Field?

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field: As it happens, my parents — who were also a bit slow on the uptake and didn’t notice the combination of their names until well into their courtship when a friend pointed it out — gave my prenatal self absolutely no credit for a future sense of humor.

They thought I’d be teased too much, and named me Elizabeth Field. I started going by Wrigley-Field when I was seven — partly for the joke, and partly because even at that age, it seemed strange to me that you get your dad’s name but not your mom’s.

We didn’t get around to legally changing it until I was in college, but I’ve been Elizabeth Wrigley-Field in how I introduce myself for the vast majority of my life by now.

TQ: Are you a Cubs fan? And if so, would you be one if your last name weren’t Wrigley-Field?

EWF: Well, I’m certainly a bigger fan of the Cubs than I am of any other team. Which is to say, I don’t follow them, but I root for them. How could I not?

Almost everyone finds their team through an accident of birth. Usually it’s just where they live; mine is just a little more obvious.

Really, though, I think of myself more as a fan of the stadium.

TQ: Have you been to the stadium?

EWF: No… which is so sad. Especially because my boyfriend lives in Chicago (and I’m in Madison, which is pretty close), so I’m there ALL THE TIME. I have no excuse.

When I was young I wrote to them. I guess I was kind of hoping for free tickets or something — at least my name on the scoreboard! But they were just going to interview me for their fan magazine (which a very nice guy at the Baseball Hall of Fame had arranged), and I never really got it together to get out there.

Then I started reading all about this kid, Wrigley Alexander Fields, who got to throw out the first pitch and everything. And at first I was like, “Who is this pipsqueak? His name isn’t even authentic! The stadium is not WRIGLEY FIELDS!” But then I reflected on how he has to go through life with the first name Wrigley, and I decided he deserves all the joy he can find.

TQ: Wait, I’m sorry. So you’ve really never been to Wrigley Field, even though your last name is Wrigley-Field and you’re only a couple hours away? What’re you waiting for? I mean, I’m not trying to make you feel bad about yourself, but for chrissakes, your last name is Wrigley-Field! I mean, frankly I think the place is a wee bit overrated, just because the crowd has been mostly shirtless and brotastic the times I’ve been there, but still.

EWF: I know… I know. I think it’s one of those things where it’s so built up in my mind that the experience can’t possibly live up to the hype. Plus, I’m lazy.

I did go to my first ever Cubs game at Shea Stadium some years back. (Perpetual Post editor Howard Megdal took me, and was kind enough to be happy for me that, miraculously, the Cubs pulled it together.) I ran around the stadium finding everyone I could wearing Cubs paraphernalia and introduced myself. I showed them my school ID so they knew I wasn’t making it up. I had a great time.

TQ: I don’t think it would ever happen, but if the Cubs took on a corporate sponsor, would you consider changing your name legally again? Like would you become Elizabeth Pepsi presents Wrigley-Field?

EWF: No, and I will be VERY MAD should that day come.

TQ: Moving on. I understand I’m not the first baseball writer to interview you about your name. How did you come into contact with Murray Chass?

EWF: I think it was after I wrote a letter to the New York Times. This was back before the 2000 election and the Times had run a profile piece on George W. Bush that mentioned that when he started dating Laura, he brought over not only his own, but all his friends’ laundry for her to do. I wrote them a letter about how lame this was, mostly so I could use the title “George W. Bush’s Dirty Laundry.” But they ditched the title and ran the letter.

Murray Chass saw that in his paper and got in touch with me. Then because of his story, Seth Swirsky heard of me and got in touch with me for one of his Baseball Letters books (I believe, in fact, that my letter is in the same book as W.’s… which is just weird). This was all while I was still in high school, and I had so much fun with it.

Mike Ditka performs my favorite gag

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You might have seen this on Deadspin already, but whatever. Before I go on I should warn you that the video linked below contains language that is completely unsafe for work. So wear headphones.

It also contains one of my favorite gags of all-time, and, to be honest, one that’s unfortunately ruined by the title of the YouTube video — “Ditka does interview in his underwear.”

To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have stayed through to the big reveal at 3:07 if I hadn’t seen that title, but clearly, the element of surprise is what makes the no-pants joke works best. Luckily, Ditka’s behavior is outlandish enough in this clip that you almost forget the title by the end, so it’s still funny that he turns out to not be wearing any pants.

I mean the whole thing is, we see people sitting at desks wearing shirts and ties or the tops of fancy ladyclothes all the time, and we never ever see what they’re wearing underneath. And pants are terrible constricting. So it’s only natural to assume they’re pantsless down there. Good for Ditka for getting it. Why wear pants if you don’t absolutely have to?

I had a sports/comedy TV show in college of which, thankfully for my career, no evidence exists online. But I’m pretty sure that nearly every time we stepped away from the desk for one reason or another, we did the no-pants joke. Too easy, probably, but made me giggle every time.

Then, I got an internship at a local network news affiliate to find out that the sportcaster really did give his nightly reports with no pants on! It was amazing. I mean, granted, he wasn’t in his underwear, but a suit top with lacrosse shorts was nearly as silly.

Anyway, here’s Ditka inadvertently performing my favorite gag:

Items of note

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Apparently Bud Selig is hoping for a Global World Series between U.S. and Japan after the regular World Series. Not sure exactly how that would play out — especially considering pitchers and innings — but it’s a cool idea, and I believe something Bobby Valentine’s been advocating for a while.

Shaun Ellis does not care for SNY’s Jets programming.

Mark Himmelstein does some fascinating research about Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Minor League groundball/flyball data.

Andre Dawson is Cooperstown-bound. I wish Tim Raines got more support, but I won’t begrudge the Hawk his ticket. The amount of Twitter anger over the whole affair was a bit ridiculous, I think.

Holy crap, Bob Klapisch

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Sometimes I actually think people are a little too hard on Bob Klapisch. He at least thinks differently than his hordes of mainstream media columnist brethren, and sometimes he stumbles upon an interesting idea. And I think it’s become sort of a knee-jerk reaction among Mets fans to assume everything he’s written is bad and dumb and too harsh against the Mets without giving it a fair shake.

Then he writes something like this.

Holy crap, Bob Klapisch. First of all, this is completely pointless. If the Mets were going to move in the fences, they’d be working on it by now, and they most certainly wouldn’t have said yesterday that they decidedly weren’t moving in the fences. So this column is useless.

Second, holy crap. I’m sorry but some things require the ol’ Fire Joe Morgan treatment. Here’s to heroes Ken Tremendous, dak and Junior. Bold words are Klapisch’s. Here we go:

Whatever you think about the $66 million the Mets have invested in Jason Bay – whether it could’ve been better spent on John Lackey or tucked away for a run at next year’s elite crop of free agents – this much is irrefutable: Home runs have become the most critical currency at Citi Field.

Is that irrefutable? I could refute that. Wait, I don’t know if I can. Hold on a second. I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying here, Bob Klapisch. Why are they the most critical currency? Because the Mets didn’t hit many? Other teams did. Other teams hit plenty. Everyone forgets that.

It’s a ambitious change in philosophy, considering the Mets hit the fewest HRs in the National League last year.

No, silly! It’s an ambitious change in philosophy. Plus, I’m not sure the Mets’ decision to hit the fewest home runs in the National League last year was a philosophical one. Actually, I’m pretty sure it had to do with everybody in the freaking lineup getting hurt. But whatever, let’s move on.

With Bay coming off a 36-homer season in Boston, Mets now have the potential to rival the Phillies in sheer muscle. That is, if Carlos Beltran can stay healthy all year, if Carlos Delgado returns and David Wright finds his 2008 stroke.

And we haven’t even mentioned Jeff Francoeur, who could bat as low as seventh in this power-laden lineup.

Wow. And guess what? If the Carloses Beltran and Delgado were healthy all last year and David Wright had his 2008 stroke — even without Bay in the lineup — the Mets would not have hit the fewest home runs in the National League. They’d actually probably have landed somewhere right in the middle of the pack, and so your whole premise would be shot, and so no one would need to be writing columns about bringing in the fences at Citi Field. That’s the whole thing.

But wait, here comes my favorite part:

The Mets don’t appear to be close to any significant up grades [sic] in their starting rotation, so if they want to improve their run-differential why not maximize their HR quotient by reconfiguring the ballpark?

Differential? Maximize? Quotient? Klapisch must be onto something smart here, right?

Oh, wait. He’s just using big words to shroud the dumbest f@#$ing thing I’ve ever read. Reconfiguring the ballpark around the same crappy pitchers will not alter the home run quotient. Reconfiguring the ballpark will only make those pitchers allow more home runs. Yes, the Mets will hit more home runs, too, but they’ll be yielding more at the same time, since they’ll be playing in the same ballpark as the other team, no matter how it’s configured. Unless Klapisch has some plan in mind for a radical newfangled wall that changes heights between the tops and bottoms of innings, the home run quotient will stay exactly the same.

And then, the kicker:

According to ESPN.com’s park factors that were released Tuesday, Citi was the major leagues’ seventh-easiest place to hit a triple in 2009.

Holy crap, sir. You found your way to ESPN.com’s park factors? While you were there, did you miss the part that showed Citi Field played as a slightly homer-friendly field in 2009? Or, worse, did you see it and think, “meh, it doesn’t really aid my point about how the Mets should move the fences in so they can hit more home runs like the Yankees and Phillies, so I’ll pretend I didn’t see it and cherry-pick this tidbit about the triples”?

I’m done here. There’s more fodder for comedy, but I’m bored with it.

Look: I don’t know the truth about whether Citi Field squashes home-run totals and I don’t purport to. I don’t think anybody does. It certainly looks big and it’s obviously earned that reputation. But there’s no evidence yet that it plays big, and everything we’ve learned so far says that it takes years to reach a definitive conclusion about a park’s effect on ballgames.

It’s baffling how many people think otherwise.

The Big Unique

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You might have heard that Randy Johnson retired last night, giving me as good a reason as any to link up this guy. This might be the craziest thing that’s ever happened:

That moment has honestly been the subject of as many late-night debates amongst me and my friends as any in history.

One of my buddies is absolutely convinced it should serve as proof of the existence of some higher power because, as he points out:

A) How many times have you ever seen a bird fly between a pitcher and a batter during a pitch before, and so what could be the chances that the one time it does, the bird (briefly) occupies the exact same space as a baseball moving 100 miles per hour?

And B) What are the chances that if, should any pitcher hit a bird with his fastball, it’s going to be Randy Johnson, the guy with the reputation for throwing about as hard as anybody in baseball who just so happens to LOOK EXACTLY LIKE A SCARECROW, a device created to discourage birds from entering an area?

It’s as if Randy Johnson wanted to up his scarecrowing game to a whole new level and wanted to make an example of that one bird to make sure that no other bird ever dares come anywhere near a pitcher’s mound again. Because that one bird, ahh… it didn’t work out so well for that one bird.

Anyway, I’m not trying to hate on Johnson with the scarecrow stuff because I really did love watching the guy pitch, which is odd as I usually prefer smaller, puppetmaster type pitchers like Pedro, Santana and Maddux.

But how Johnson looked was a big part of what made him such a sight to behold, plus I always got the feeling it fueled his fastballs at least a little bit.

I’ve got no evidence, of course, but looking at that pockmarked face and that awkward body, I couldn’t help but assume every one of those heaters came with a little bit of extra mustard from so many lonely middle-school lunches.

And so I read stories like Jeff Pearlman’s, asserting that Johnson was a jerk who deserves to be treated as such, and I actually just feel bad for the guy. And I read anecdotes like this totally unconfirmed one in the Amazin’ Avenue comments section and I really hope they’re true, and that Johnson’s just some misunderstood metalhead with a heart of gold who’d help you out when you’re sick and is interested in photography, because that’d all jive a lot better with the sad former seventh-grader Randy Johnson I’ve created in my head. Although I guess that guy could grow up to bully reporters, too.

Anyway, his baseball legacy is as follows: one of the greatest pitchers of his generation, one of the greatest lefthanders ever, that really tall dude, anecdotal evidence that tall pitchers mature late, the guy who’ll be labeled “the last 300 game winner” until the next “last 300 game winner,” World Series hero to Diamondbacks fans, postseason goat to Yankees fans, and, of course, that guy who totally destroyed that bird that time.

Items of note

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Hat tip to Amazin’ Avenue for pointing out the awesome work Patrick Flood is doing at his relatively new blog. His weeklong look at David Wright’s weird year continues.

Earlier this week some highlights of an 1980s basketball game were on, and I told my wife that — if my hair would do anything like comply — I would totally try to bring back the hi-top fade. Good for Brandon Jennings.

Jay Mariotti volunteered to be kicked out of the BBWAA. I’ll take his spot if I get the “get-into-every-baseball-game-free” pass.

Apparently Aroldis Chapman is close to a deal somewhere. Doesn’t sound like it’s with the Mets or Yanks.