Mr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Tim McCarver

When it was announced in December that Tim McCarver, seemingly fresh off of the conclusion of a three-and-a-half decade career as a baseball broadcaster, would be working as a color commentator for thirty St. Louis Cardinals games in 2014 on Fox Sports Midwest, I was less than ecstatic. The first World Series I can actively remember watching was in 1998: With the exception of 1999, during which commentary was provided by legendary broadcaster Joe Morgan, Tim McCarver has been a constant presence throughout the most important baseball games of every season of my baseball fandom. And when I heard that Tim McCarver would now be broadcasting games in a capacity which would actually increase my own exposure to him, I felt a bit like Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

But in a shocking turn of events, Tim McCarver has grown on me.

Now, let me be very clear about something: I am not claiming that Tim McCarver is a great announcer. But after hearing him broadcast on FSM, rather than during significant nationally televised games, it seems as though McCarver has, at 72, found his niche.

A big part of my evolution on McCarver is the context of the games which he is calling. Which is to say he is not being tasked with calling World Series games, during which malapropisms about alleged doubles that are actually triples are aggravating. And fans who criticized McCarver’s verbal flubs in this case were justified—it’s well within reason to expect a higher level of analysis (or in this case, simply accurate analysis) if you are watching a vitally important playoff game. But in the earlier stages of the season, it has been less of a problem. Not that I particularly enjoy the mistakes, but I can live with them, because it means that McCarver’s strengths are able to shine.

Even his most ardent critics can concede one thing about Tim McCarver—he is an overwhelmingly likable person. Even if you detest his broadcasting, it is not as though you have some kind of personal vendetta against him. It takes a man very comfortable in his own skin, a man with some sort of perspective on life, to release an album of standards while in the midst of a high-profile career broadcasting baseball. And as much as we all may love the baseball season, you would be hard-pressed to find somebody who did not find it to be at least somewhat interminable.

You cannot, as a fan, treat every game with the passion of a playoff game. You wouldn’t be able to survive. In the NFL, you can pull it off—the worst team in league history lost 16 games. The best team in MLB history under the current schedule format lost 46 games. A little bit of serenity isn’t just preferable—it’s necessary. And Tim McCarver offers a fresh set of anecdotes to sprinkle throughout these dog days of summer. It is an inherent thing working against Rick Horton and Al Hrabosky: All of their best stories have already been told on FSM airwaves over the years. And rather than simply citing an accomplished Major League Baseball career as an open-and-shut case for why you should listen to what he has to say, McCarver is self-deprecating and authentic. He is of the Bob Uecker School of Ex-Jock Broadcasting—which is ironic, since he was actually an accomplished player who put up nearly six wins above replacement for a World Series champion.

The era of uniformly beloved broadcasters is nearly over. There’s Vin Scully and that’s it. Jack Buck, Ernie Harwell, Curt Gowdy, Harry Caray, and Harry Kalas are all gone. That Tim McCarver is not an immortally great announcer is an excessive grievance. All we can ask is that, for three hours during a long baseball season, a broadcaster allows us to enjoy ourselves. And so far, FSM’s rookie broadcaster has done just fine.

An Analysis of Purple Rain via Baseball

Thirty years ago today, American rock music reached its peak when Prince and the Revolution, a regrettably short-lived band fronted by the ubiquitous multi-instrumentalist megastar Prince, released Purple Rain. No album produced by an American artist before or after this album has been as great.

Certainly, some will decline to categorize Purple Rain as a rock album because of its many non-rock influences (dance, gospel, R&B, funk, soul, even a little bit of folk in there for good measure), but it is precisely because Prince did not feel obliged to fit his work into an easy digestible genre that he was able to write and perform an album which holds up after hundreds of listens and which has stood the test of time like few others. The most frequent album of comparison to Purple Rain is one of the few albums ever made to have sold more copies than it--Michael Jackson's Thriller. But whereas MJ's blockbuster, released a mere 19 months before Prince's, has an overproduced and dated track for every "Billie Jean", Purple Rain sounds like it could have been released at just about any point over the last thirty years. In fact, if I had to compile a list of the nine best tracks from these two nine-track albums, I'd go with "Billie Jean" and eight Prince songs.

But that's enough of my general Prince adoration. There's plenty of tributes to this album out there. What I like to do is to make completely preposterous comparisons, and that's what I'm going to do here. It occurred to me today, while listening to Purple Rain, that the album is strangely like a baseball lineup. Okay, let me explain. Unlike in football, for example, where there are enormous differences between players of different positions, baseball players all play within what is pretty much the same general framework but there are still noticeable differences at play. Much as Purple Rain is nine songs united by the same spirit but still quite different in structure and overall sound, baseball operates in a similar vein. So here are some comparisons, for those of you unfamiliar with the album or the sport (because I'm sure people who don't know this album will be ALL OVER this).

1. Let's Go Crazy--"Let's Go Crazy" is a straight-forward rocker, but one which has everything you should want to have in a great rock song. It was a #1 hit on the pop charts and features two of the most blistering electric guitar solos on Earth--how this isn't a mainstay on classic rock radio is probably the best argument in the world that unless your name is Jimi Hendrix (and your band is predominantly white British guys), artists of color are artificially blocked from the playlists. But the song has it all--it's fast, it hits you hard, and particularly in the final thirty seconds or so, it is ridiculously flashy. And that is why the baseball equivalent is...

Mike Trout. The only flaw in "Let's Go Crazy" is the admittedly silly spoken-word intro, which is a bit similar to the opening track on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in that it *seems* to be setting up a high concept but doesn't even a little bit. Consider this the equivalent to Trout's banal Twitter account.

2. Take Me With U--This is a nice, fundamentally solid pop song. A late-run single, this song would be a low-level hit at any point in history: It's just too nice and too happy and too innocuous to not be. This isn't really a compliment nor an insult--keep in mind I do *like* the song. I just don't think it's anybody's favorite song on the album. If this is your favorite song on the album, you probably didn't care much for the album.

Meet Ben Zobrist. Like "Take Me With U", Zobrist is predicated on reliability--he is a consistent player most notable for his versatility rather than for being a superstar. Also, just as "Take Me With U" is unnecessarily a duet with Apollonia Kotero, Ben Zobrist is also part of an unnecessary duet--his Twitter account, which he shares with his wife, because apparently Ben Zobrist is of the belief that once you get married, you are no longer your own autonomous person.

3. The Beautiful Ones--The first two-thirds of this song is, frankly, pretty boring. It's a piano ballad that is more or less in the mold of a Thriller ballad (think "Human Nature"). But then, in the third act, Prince cranks up his vocals and LOSES HIS DAMN MIND. Every single word he utters in this song from "What's it gonna be, baby?" onward makes the hair on the back of my neck rise to action and bludgeons my feels. I suspect the only reason this song isn't the biggest karaoke song in the world is because nobody that isn't Prince Rogers Nelson can pull it off.

Like "The Beautiful Ones", Chris Carpenter's career started out pretty boring. It just kind of...was. Nothing you'd give a second thought to. And then, as seen above, Chris Carpenter lost his mind and became, in his own strange way, a legend.

4. Computer Blue--It didn't even dawn on me until after, I don't know, probably a couple hundred times hearing this song that the guitar is awesome in it. That's because, as is typical of many Prince songs, the guitar isn't really front and center. His virtuosity is different from that of the Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, dudes-loitering-at-Guitar-Center rock, in that it is often buried in the mix for the sake of the song's overall quality. But make no mistake--it's Prince's immense talents that make this song what it is.

Baseball fans have gotten to a point of at least knowing who Josh Donaldson is but not quite realizing just how good he is. It's like how people will make lists of the greatest guitarists of all-time and still put Angus Young or something above Prince, who gets left in the honorable mentions. But just as Josh Donaldson is a kind of boring, great defensive third baseman (he doesn't have the highlights of a Manny Machado but makes every play he should and positions himself to go beyond that), Prince's "Computer Blue" seems to fall by the wayside.

5. Darling Nikki--Not a single but perhaps the most historically significant song off the album, it was "Darling Nikki" that inspired Tipper Gore to form the Parents Media Research Council. And with reason--a song with lyrics as dirty as these doesn't usually end up on an album that goes platinum thirteen times. But beyond the words is a funky bit of hard rock. When Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor says he was inspired by Prince, I feel like this song had to be a big part of the reason. The claustrophobia and sexual angst exhibited by the feel of the music ends up saying more than the literal verbiage used.

Carlos Martinez, like the 5'2 Prince, has an awful lot of power in his small frame. You don't look at the guy and think he will fire a fastball around 100 MPH, and you don't see Prince and think industrial rock riffs, but that's just what you get. Also, sexual references.

6. When Doves Cry--This is Prince's biggest career hit and when you think about it, it makes not a damn bit of sense. The song starts with a wild guitar solo and then has another short guitar solo three or four minutes later, with zero guitar in the interim. There is no bass. The song is essentially an exercise in minimalism; it's arguably the weirdest song on an album that, while popular, wasn't exactly afraid to do its own thing.

Hunter Pence barely looks like a human being playing baseball. He has a weird, awkward stance and his swing looks unnatural and yet...he's one of the better hitters in baseball. You do you, Hunter.

7. I Would Die 4 U--Confession: This is my least favorite song on the album. It's not even that I think it's bad: It just feels so disappointing. Prince delivers vocally and he certainly is taking a stab at lyrical profundity--the song just can't live up to the expectations left when you consider that the three singles which preceded it had peaked at #1, #1, and #2 on the charts.

Cameron Maybin is a perfectly fine Major League Baseball player. That's just what he is. If you look at him in the context of Earth, he's a successful person. Not many people play Major League Baseball, let alone make successful careers out of it. But in 2008, Maybin was the #7 prospect in baseball. #8 was Clayton Kershaw. With the weight of expectations comes an objectively unfair standard by which we judge people and by which we judge songs.

8. Baby I'm a Star--God love Prince. You see, I see no reason to deny the popular perception that he is a raging egomaniac because, well, he is. He absolutely is. But I don't mind. It can actually be quite endearing when a guy backs it up. And on "Baby I'm a Star", Prince is leading The Revolution on a quest to show off everything they've got. Play spectacular guitar, talk about how great you are, go ahead and give your weirdo keyboard player who for some reason always wears scrubs his own little segment. It's all fun.

Carlos Gomez is baseball's embodiment of fun. I was going to just go ahead and talk about his bat flips and his trolling of Brian McCann and his use of Fun Baseball tenants like stealing bases and spectacular defense but, well, that picture came up. So there's that too.

9. Purple Rain--This is the song that in the most ways works. It is well-rounded and, other than not really alternating its speed, covers every base. "Purple Rain" is an exercise in musical beauty--its gospel flair is one thing, but the power of the all-time great closing guitar solo makes it a well-rounded finale to a tremendous rock accomplishment.

Like "Purple Rain", Troy Tulowitzki captures everything you could possibly ask for (with the possible exception of exceptional bursts of speed). He has contact, he is a superb fielder, and he can bring the power at will. It's terrific. Purple Rain is terrific. Baseball is fun. 

Purple Rain forever.

Drinking German Beer in the Most American of Ways

Two weeks ago, I purchased a 16.9 ounce bottle of Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel, a beer brewed by a nearly-millennium old brewery in the German region of Bavaria. It is one of my favorite beers in the world and after going many months without purchasing beer for my personal consumption, I decided that it was time to jump back on the wagon (or is it on the wagon?).

It didn’t even dawn on me at the time that I was, on the second day of the World Cup, buying a German beer just in time for the United States to be in Germany’s group during the World Cup. So I have been hesitant to drink it. But now, with the United States three days away from a huge matchup against Germany, I feel that I need to drink it while preserving my reputation as a fine and upstanding American.

So I asked Twitter.

So I have a German beer in my fridge. What would be the most patriotic way to consume it in light of Thursday?
— John (@johnjf125) June 23, 2014

I got several responses but there was no contest as to the best response. It was from Twitter user @lazyrasmus. The suggestion was then confirmed via tweet favoriting from Twitter users @Buddha6883 and @lil_scooter93, themselves fine and patriotic Americans. Everybody involved brought their a-game, particularly Mr. Lazyrasmus. And here is the winning suggestion.

@johnjf125 wear a tie
— Condescending Wacha (@lazyrasmus) June 23, 2014

Now I, like most men of a certain age, own several ties. But for this particular occasion, there was only one choice of which tie to wear.

America so hard. pic.twitter.com/eHCLPqSkqw
— John (@johnjf125) June 22, 2014

Well, this is a start. I can prove my love for America by wearing a United States flag designed bowtie. Is this sufficiently American? Well, maybe for some. But not for me, damn it. I need to make this the most American beer-drinking experience of all-time. So let’s get this started with Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 ode to the American spirit (of drinking until you forget how miserable your life is).

The National Anthems

Out of respect to Germany, I will play their national anthem. After all, we don’t hate Germany. In fact, if Germany could just go ahead and agree to a 0-0 draw which would allow the United States to advance, I wouldn’t argue.

What a bad song. And you wanna know something? That’s the best selling single to ever come from Germany. And from a band who made perfectly good big dumb rock songs before they got into writing the national anthem of Germany.

But that’s just a warm-up act for the United States of America.

The United States of America has a beautiful, diverse culture which can foster so many unique, equally valid components, but if listening to Jimi Hendrix rip off the Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t make you want to run through a goddamned wall in the name of liberty, you can go ahead and move to Communist Sweden.

Next, I will pull the beer out of my refrigerator. I have to admit, the Germans make one regal looking bottle of beer. And before I continue, I should add an important disclaimer: Anybody who hopes to MERICA like this should be at least 21 years old. Additionally, this is far from the only way out there to MERICA. If you do not drink, be it for ethical, health, or taste reasons, do not let this limit you. Representing your homeland is a little like being a member of the Wu-Tang Clan—it’s less about you subscribing to a certain set of rules and boundaries and more about FEELING what it’s all about.

Next, though, comes glassware. I know I’m drinking some expensive beer here, but I don’t want to sound like the beer snob here, but I’m not drinking this beer out of that bottle. What kind of college freshman douchebag would that make me? Answer: Some kind of. But anyway, considering I don’t really drink that much, I have an inordinate amount of glasses that would suffice for the job. My most recently acquired glass came via a fraternity in which I belonged in college, but the fraternity is an international fraternity. There’s nothing wrong with being international or diverse, but for maximum MERICA, the presence of Canadian chapters aren’t going to do the job. I have a glass with a disintegrated Dave and Busters logo which, frankly, makes me sad. So that leaves me with a choice of American breweries.

Ain’t a damn thing more American than Sierra Nevada. Named after a mountain range along the Oregon Trail, after all. Approved.

Now, it’s time to pour a glass.

DON’T TREAD! Now, it’s time to taste it.

The Germans are good at that beer they made. Shoutout to them forever for it. I should take pride in “my people”. You see, on both sides of my family, my ancestors arrived in the United States from Germany in the late 1800s. Four generations later, I came along. And you know what? They can root for Germany in the World Cup all they want. They are Germans. I am a real American.

I. I believe. I believe that we will win or at least maybe get a draw or if we lose that Portugal and Ghana will draw or the winner will have an insufficient goal differential to advance out of the group over the United States. Game on.

I Kill Baseball Part 2: The Great Clayton Kershaw Experiment

Four and a half months ago, I wrote basically the best thing I ever have or ever will write. It is the logical conclusion of every stupid thing I’ve ever written—no less of a source than a man with whom I recorded a one hour and fifty-two minute World Cup preview in which we declared that Brazil's national sport is basketball has declared it the peak of me putting forth objectively stupid hypothetical questions.

You see, I’m not particularly interested in boring baseball hypotheticals like “how would the Cardinals do if they had Mike Trout in center field instead of a platoon of Peter Bourjos and Jon Jay” because I more or less already know the answer—better, because Mike Trout is super good and Peter Bourjos and Jon Jay aren’t as super good as Mike Trout. I’m interested in peculiarity. In the case of my first edition of hacking Baseball Mogul, I dipped somewhat into science fiction (note: as of the time this was written, human cloning is not known to have happened), but this time, I’m dipping merely into the realm of unlikelihood.

CLAYTON KERSHAW THE BASED BALL GOD:

It can be argued that on Wednesday night, Clayton Kershaw had the greatest pitching performance in the history of Major League Baseball. I think I would still defer to Kerry Wood, who was a questionable official scorer’s decision away from, like Kershaw, having a no-walk, no-hit pitching performance not converted into a perfect game due to an error, while striking out 20 batters to Kershaw’s 15. And hell, Sandy Koufax and Matt Cain both pitched actual perfect games with 14 strikeouts. But this is really just splitting hairs because no matter what way you slice it, Clayton Kershaw was super duper awesome. It is difficult to imagine a situation in which his awesomeness wouldn’t have carried the Dodgers to victory against any team in baseball. And that’s where I come in.

The thing is, as easy as it would be to dwell on Hanley Ramirez for his error, it’s not like factors outside of Clayton Kershaw, whether they his defense or luck, let him down on the whole. Kershaw struck out 15, which means 12 outs were recorded by fielders, which means that, since there was an error, there were 13 balls in play. The Rockies’ team BABIP in the loosest sense of the term (one in which the Ramirez error, which was very much an error, was ruled an infield hit) was .077, which is, um, bad. Now, there were a lot of weakly hit balls and all that but regardless, Kershaw wasn’t exactly alone out there, as awesome as he was.

But now, Mr. Kershaw, you will face karmic revenge that you do not especially deserve via your defense. They will let you down. They will make you hurt.

But don’t worry: I’m not a total masochist. I will give ClayClay (this is a nickname people use for Kershaw, right?) some offensive help. In fact, I will give him some of the best damn run support I can. In fact, some of these guys will be really good fielders. They will merely be used, um, unconventionally.

Mike Trout, catcher: For all of Trout’s strengths, as I previously explored, he doesn’t have a great arm. It’s not a terrible arm but it’s really nothing to write home about. WHICH MEANS HE ISN’T A FIVE TOOL PLAYER BECAUSE THAT IS A STUPID TERM. But since his offensive value is too great to ignore, it was important to place him somewhere where his world-class range wouldn’t make him anything resembling an asset in the field. So welcome to catcher, Mike Trout. Hey, Mike Piazza was a great hitter who couldn’t throw out runners to save his life at catcher (granted, he was a passable fielder in other facets, but I think in spite of previous history with Mike Trout, he might survive here).

Giancarlo Stanton, first base: Of the eight best hitters in baseball, Stanton has the best arm and the best range. So I’m putting him in the position sometimes played by David Ortiz.

Jose Bautista, second base: Since Joey Bats (brother of the late, great Billy Bats) has played third base, it’s slightly risky to give him a position that he couldn’t handle to a degree. So we might as well limit a pretty good arm and exploit a relative lack of range.

Miguel Cabrera, shortstop: So you thought Miguel Cabrera playing third base was a shitshow?

Andrew McCutchen, third base: Cutch is an interesting defensive player. He makes occasionally spectacular defensive plays but can’t particularly throw and mostly makes up for bad defensive instincts by being fast (which partially contributes to the spectacular plays). Third base is a perfect terrible position for him. This was the first position I decided. But Baseball Mogul remains optimistic about Cutch, though I question their judgment after reading the final sentence in his scouting report.

Troy Tulowitzki, left field: Tulo has been the best hitter in baseball this year so he HAD to be on the team. But he’s a really good fielder at shortstop. I’m optimistic that at left field, Tulowitzki will not be a good fielder because that’s just how Baseball Mogul works, but on the off-chance that he is good, he’s in left field so the “damage” is limited.

Paul Goldschmidt, center field: There are two guys on this team who have never played the outfield in their careers. One is in left field. The one I’m positive would be a bad fielder is in center field. And the guy who has barely played in the outfield (in left) is in right.

Edwin Encarnacion, right field: You get the idea by now.

Okay, so you know how I said that this wasn’t about cloning? Well, I lied. Everything is about cloning. So Clayton Kershaw is getting thirteen clones. Since I will be inputting his stats solely from Wednesday into the game, he will have super good endurance, but since the computer will inevitably go to the bullpen (BBM allows you to manage games but I kind of enjoy my will to live, so I ain’t sitting through 162+ games of this), he gets Clayton Kloneshaws ™. As for the bench, I want to minimize it. So the Dodgers will have three bench players. Every starter will get a perfect health rating and for the bench, I’m going to go with default created players, who are terrible at everything. They will be at least as bad at fielding as these guys and much, much worse hitting. And I will scale down manager substitution and double switches. Each of these guys would get 100 games if Mike Matheny could double switch them into games.

IMPORTANT EDITING NOTE: If you are a Baseball Mogul player, remember to uncheck the box about “sanity checking” stats. Usually the sanity checks only come into play in small sample sizes, like if a guy plays one inning and records three putouts and then it looks like he’s literally a vacuum which encompasses an entire baseball field. Three Cardinals in my experiences have broken the sanity check: 1985 Vince Coleman for steals, 1998 Mark McGwire for home runs, and 2013 Matt Carpenter for doubles. The more you know!

So an interesting thing happened when editing Kershaws. Turns out he was so damn good on Wednesday that Baseball Mogul literally cannot rationalize what he did. His predicted stats show his Wednesday line but…apparently the system is overwhelmed and spit out some pretty, um, erratic, scouting numbers (don't worry, I changed the health after this point). Hurray!

Also, the Kershaws have been differentiated with new first names. The original Kershaw is now Alpha Kershaw, and then Beta, Gamma, etc. Hey guys, I know the Greek alphabet! I am so worldly! That or I was mandated to learn it in college. One of these theories is true. Anyway, because YOLO, I decided to let the computer sort the Kershaws by optimizing the bullpen and rotation and…turns out the actual Clayton Kershaw, Alpha Kershaw, is the team’s fifth starter. The cloning process has bred four better starters—Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon. You may recognize these as the next four letters of the Greek alphabet. Thankfully, generations Zeta on were not nearly as strong or I’d have thrown my computer off my balcony and set fire to it. I’ve seen The Terminator. I know what’s going on here.

THE RESULTS

So basically, I figured this would go one of two ways. I honestly didn’t have much of an idea between the two as to how it would inevitably go, but I was pretty sure there was no middle ground here. Either this team would be a wretched mess, an offensive juggernaut with an incredible pitcher being totally let down by a hot mess of a defense. Or my general belief that sabermetrics revisionism has led to defense being overrated in a strikeout era would be validated when offensive and pitching superstars carry the new-look Dodgers to glory.

Well, I was right. One of either the win or loss column included the total of 149. So either this is the best or worst team in baseball history. But first, let’s look at a game which symbolizes just how much I have ruined baseball.

JUNE 4, 2014—Chicago White Sox at Los Angeles Dodgers

The pitching matchup for this game is Beta Kershaw, the nominal ace of the staff, against Jose Quintana, who has bucked the trend I set forth by being an actual person and not a clone.

Anyway, Jordan Danks led off the game with a bunt single to first base. It dawns on me all of a sudden that…how bad could Giancarlo Stanton be at this? Or Andrew McCutchen down the left field line at that? Is this what teams are going to do, lay down bunts and exploit outfielder unfamiliarity with fielding ground balls? If this is a continuing problem, I will have to go back through previous game logs and hopefully discover that the AI didn’t figure this out immediately. Or we are all screwed. The Baseball Mogul managers will slowly learn more and slowly exploit our apathy before we work for them.

Luckily, ol computer Robin Ventura didn’t keep doing this in the first. #2 hitter Gordon Beckham popped up to the shortstop, Miguel Cabrera, who recorded the out. Which isn’t a huge surprise—Miggy isn’t THAT bad of a fielder.

And then, things got real weird.

“Dayan Viciedo grounded to third for a double play (5-4-3).”

A double play? Kershaw didn’t record one measly strikeout? How exactly did Andrew McCutchen cleanly field contact off Beta Kershaw’s 81 MPH hard curve, fire it to Jose Bautista, who then made a proper turn to Giancarlo Stanton for the third out of the inning? Perhaps players are this good. Maybe social pressures dictated that these phenomenal hitters went to the outfield and didn’t develop into the next Mike Schmidt or something. Perhaps positions are not real—we have merely invented them for the sake of order. Or maybe this is a fluke.

Well, anyway, the Dodgers scored a run in the bottom of the first, but we don’t care about this, right? It should have actually been more damage—Paul Goldschmidt grounded out with the bases loaded. Paul Goldschmidt is this team’s seventh hitter. Jesus Christ.

After three innings, the score was 3-0 Dodgers. This part was fine. But Beta Kershaw struck out one batter and allowed no baserunners since the leadoff bunt. The defense was holding their end of the bargain. A slight reprieve would come in the top of the fourth, when Beta struck out Jordan Danks, Gordon Beckham, and Dayan Viciedo. Maybe all he needed was to figure out the order the second time through. OH DEAR GOD THE CLONES ARE LEARNING!

By the top of the sixth, I’m getting worried. The Dodgers are up 4-0 and Beta Kershaw has “only” five strikeouts. Now, I realize that nine K/9, even when a player is projected for 15 per nine, is perfectly good, but what concerns me is this defense. They—aren’t bad. Please, for the love of Based Ball God, give me some reason to believe that clones will blow it.

The leadoff batter of the top of the sixth, Denis Phipps, got to a full count before grounding the ball to third baseman Andrew McCutchen, who committed a fielding error. On the next pitch, catcher Mike Trout had a passed ball and Phipps got to second. Next, after a weak Hector Gimenez dribbler in front of the mound, Trout committed a throwing error. It was now first and third with nobody out. Eric Patterson came to the plate and…he reached first on an error by second baseman Jose Bautista. A run scored and there were runners on first and second. Presumably rattled by his supporting “defense”, Beta Kershaw then allowed a home run to Jordan Danks, who it bears repeating led the game off with a bunt. Beckham, Viciedo, and Jose Abreu then proceeded to get three consecutive outs, but damage had been done. On one hit and zero walks allowed, Beta Kershaw had allowed four runs and the game was tied.

Welp.

Mike Trout hit a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the sixth, saving some face after his defensive miscues in the top half of the frame, to give the Dodgers a one run lead before the seventh inning began. Apropos of nothing, I wonder what inning the Dodgers have to cut off alcohol sales.

The computer manager did a really weird, stupid thing, replacing Paul Goldschmidt with a guy whose CF defensive rating is inexplicably WORSE than Goldschmidt’s and who cannot hit at all. TRIM THOSE SIDEBURNS, MATTINGLY. But luckily that didn’t affect this inning.

First, Alexei Ramirez reached on another Trout error. I’m starting to think that my Clone Trout experiment gave the impression that cloning an outfielder and putting him at other positions wouldn’t work but that in reality it was a Trout problem. But anyway, after a Conor Gillaspie strikeout, Denis Phipps drove a “double” into the left field gap. According to the play-by-play, he went for an extra base and reached third but I have my suspicions that Tulo blew it. SEE HE CAN’T BE MVP NOW THE MVP SHOULD ALWAYS BE YADIER MOLINA. But next, a Hector Gimenez single to center and the White Sox took the lead. Beta Kershaw overcame another Trout error (Jesus, dude) and going into the seventh inning stretch, the Sox led 6-5.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Dodgers scored six runs and ended up winning the game 11-6. I tell you this for one reason and one reason only—the pitcher who allowed all six runs for the White Sox? Mitchell Boggs. Those of you who are not Cardinals fans are probably confused as to why this detail matters but trust me, I know how to pander to a base.

Beta Kershaw pitched a complete game. His final line reads: 9 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 1 HR, 6 R, 1 ER, 10 K, 140 pitches. His season ERA increased to 0.60.

This season went well for the Dodgers.

The starting rotation of the Dodgers accumulated WAR seasons of 19.5, 19.6, 20.3, 19.8, and 11.7 (he only had 23 starts. He also got 21, making him the only Dodgers starter who did not reach 30 on the season). Beta pitched three perfect games and an additional no-hitter. Gamma had one perfecto and one no-hitter. Epsilon got a no-no, Delta got four no-hitters, and Alpha (i.e., the actual Clayton Kershaw character pre-cloning) got none. And since he got a no-hitter in real life this year already, the game may have underestimated this team’s force.

The entire pitching staff had these combined statistics on the season: 2128 strikeouts, zero walks, 63 earned runs, 134 total runs. Theta Kershaw was the worst pitcher on the entire team by a sizable margin: He had a season ERA of 1.04 and a season FIP of 1.73. #DFATheta

Amazingly, Mike Trout was not the worst defender on this team. He was merely third worst, with a mere -5.1 lost defensive wins, catching a solid 10% of baserunners while committing 38 errors. Hell, he was even a moderately minus defender in 24 games where Don Mattingly ruined everything and Trout wound up in right or center field.

Miguel Cabrera committed 43 errors at shortstop. He put up -6.5 defensive wins and had a .914 fielding percentage. Jose Bautista was worse. Bautista, at second, was -6.7 wins and rocked 27 errors. I’m still not sure how he was worse but I don’t even really understand these stats in real life—I’m not trying to understand them in this hellish landscape of “baseball” of which I am responsible.

But anyway, now I’m going to simulate the playoffs. I’ve written this entire thing up to this point without having done that! You guys can learn what happens with me.

The Dodgers won the World Series in four games, ironically over the White Sox. Beta Kershaw pitched a no-hitter in the playoffs and won World Series MVP. Baseball is ruined

Human cloning may not be a good thing, folks.

The United States World Cup Bandwagon Isn't Tipping Over

Today, a few million of my closest friends and I watched the United States defeat Ghana 2-1 in their first game in group play in the 2014 World Cup. It was fun. I had fun. The people with whom I watched appeared to have fun. The people I watched live tweeting their raw emotions appeared to have fun.

Fun. Sports are supposed to be fun.

Rooting for Team USA in soccer is a unique experience as an American because it's the rare opportunity to root for a legitimate yet viable underdog. This isn't basketball, or to a lesser extent ice hockey, where the U.S. is a major favorite to win competitions. This isn't field hockey (it's not just for girls in Catholic high schools in most countries!) or cricket, where the United States simply does not try nor care. This is a country in which the United States can be the country its residents like to pretend it is in the big picture--a scrappy underdog that gets by purely on its grit and determination and not its overwhelming supply of natural resources. That and I think soccer is a pretty fun sport to watch anyway, but it is amplified when everybody you know is on the same side. I get mildly annoyed when I meet people who root for my rivals but I get outright offended when people don't root for the United States.

Okay, so that's my case for liking the World Cup. But if you don't, it's your loss. I don't care. Nobody should care.

The World Cup opener between Brazil and Croatia, in spite of being in a mid/late Thursday afternoon and having no specific partisan ties for most Americans, got a higher TV rating than every NHL playoff game, and every NBA playoff game before the finals. Now, you can argue (correctly) that the United States is not the biggest country for soccer and that soccer is not the biggest sport in the United States, but does it matter?

At this point, trying to get people who don't care about soccer to watch soccer is like telling them about this band you just discovered called "The Beatles." You should check out this album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! It'll blow your mind!" It's a waste of time--enough of the world is on board with what you like that you don't NEED to convert anyone. With that said, if someone is receptive to joining the bandwagon, you should by all means want to usher them aboard. And that's a problem too.

Everyone starts somewhere. Not everyone is on board at the same time with everything. I didn't discover the music of Oasis, my favorite band, until I was in college and they were in the midst of promoting their final album. It wasn't because I was stubbornly opposed to them nor did I have some pre-existing bias against them--I just wasn't familiar with their work. Luckily, nobody cared that I jumped aboard the bandwagon and on the rare occasion that I find somebody else who wants to geek out about them with me, they are just happy I'm down. And vice versa. And some people are just discovering new things, like a passion for the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team, later than others. Why begrudge them? 

It's this kind of exclusionary attitude that keeps soccer coverage down. I'm willing to guarantee that most ESPN personalities are at least conversational in soccer (they know major players and the basics of the game...you know, the kind of stuff that is really all you need for a few seconds of talking headdery) but that's not good enough--when someone tries to talk about soccer that doesn't have pre-existing established credentials, he is intruding on an established fraternity. And thus there is no progress. Fans can't decide if they want soccer to be a bigger deal or if they want it to remain a small cluster of fans.

But I say welcome aboard if you're interested. And if not, it's your loss. I'll enjoy the ride.

Audio Johnapedia 40--The Insider's Guide to the 2014 World Cup

In this edition, Nick (@FWBluesFan) and I run down insider details of the 2014 World Cup, including the teams that are competing and what sport is being played.

Why Patrick Kane Still Deserves Your Hatred

From June 2007 to August 2010, I worked as a seasonal employee at McDonald's. The reason is very simple--I was going to college 3 1/2 hours away from home and I needed somewhere I could easily jump in and out of. And I wanted money enough to not be too picky.

For anyone who didn't know me during stretches where I was working at McDonald's, words cannot do justice to how much I despised it. I thought at the time that maybe it would be one of those things that you hate at the time but you remember fondly with retrospect--the opposite has proven true. Every job I have had since McDonald's has done nothing but reinforce that my opinion was completely justified.

And the thing that I hated above all else with McDonald's wasn't the hours, though they weren't pleasant. It wasn't the wage I was paid--while I empathize with fast food workers with families and actual financial responsibilities, it wasn't of the utmost concern to me. It wasn't even the actual job in and of itself--I enjoy routine and did not mind repeating the same menial tasks every day. It was the people.

Society treats lowly paid workers as something other than human--if somebody makes less money than you, it insanely becomes okay to not treat them as a human. It wasn't uncommon to be angrily questioned about tiny things (how much change I would return to a customer, the menu at the restaurant at which I worked) and it wasn't uncommon to have status pushed upon me. I won't soon forget being told by customers how much money they made, not because it had any relevance whatsoever to me doing my job but as a way of projecting importance. I won't forget being told after mishearing an order that "this is why (I was) working at McDonald's." It doesn't matter that it was a very temporary thing and that I eventually moved on to "better" things--it's no more tolerable to talk down to a single mother about how she isn't wealthy.

One week in particular stood out to me. It was in the Summer of 2009, around the point where I was really getting sick of McDonald's. I actually kind of enjoyed it when I started and 2008 was when I felt some minor annoyance but then in 2009, I was completely jaded. By the time August rolled around, I was bordering on depressed. And after a long day in which a clearly intoxicated man threatened to kick the asses of both myself and an on-duty manager because we would not give him change for paying with a $20 bill instead of a $10 bill, after having counted the cash register two times each and found it completely in balance every time, I went home trying to maintain some kind of internal composure.

When I got home, I found this.

I was immediately irate. Who does this piece of shit think he is? Patrick Kane was the same age as I was, just a few months older, and while I was busy dealing with self-important, entitled pricks...Patrick Kane was the self-important, entitled prick. Now, I was already years removed from having inherent anger towards people wealthier than I am. Unless, of course, a person's economic status gave them the kind of disregard for humanity that being a highly paid hockey player gave Patrick Kane.

Nine days later, the little man with a temper issued apologies.

Patrick Kane apologized to his family, Buffalo, Chicago, the Blackhawks, and Blackhawks fans. You know who the asshole didn't apologize to?

Jan Radecki. Jan Radecki is the 62 year old Buffalo taxi driver whom Kane and his cousin, aged 20 and 21 respectively, beat indiscriminately over twenty cents of cab fare. Radecki's glasses were broken and his clothes were ripped and all the while, hockey's equivalent to Chris Brown cited his hockey accomplishments. To this date, even after having plead guilty to beating up Mr. Radecki, Patrick Kane has never apologized to him. And thanks to the delusions of both himself and homer Chicago Blackhawks media, the Buffalo cab incident is treated as a blip of immaturity. A blip of immaturity would have been sucker-punching a cab driver and then immediately apologizing and accepting responsibility for his actions. But Kane's level of premeditation, malice, and years of utter denial are not signs of a 20 year old's immaturity. They are signs of a 20-25 year old's sociopathy.

Patrick Kane is a sack of shit. He is a little boy not worthy of my respect. I rooted for the St. Louis Rams while they had Leonard Little, who committed vehicular manslaughter in 1999 (and, unlike Kane, was punished with both jail time and a league suspension) and then somehow managed to get a second DUI in 2004. Leonard Little was a deplorable man, and I knew this, and I still rooted for his team because he came after the fact. Because of this, I don't mind Blackhawks fans who tolerate Patrick Kane's on-ice success. But I do have a problem with those who bury their heads in the sand and pretend that what Patrick Kane did was at all acceptable. Like, people buy Patrick Kane jerseys for their children. What does that tell the children? That Kane is a hero? That he is somebody worth admiring? Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa may annoy opposing fans because of their immense talents but they aren't inherently miserable people. They're just good hockey players. And there are plenty of athletes I dislike but have no problems with as people. I find Richard Sherman and Lebron James to be obnoxious egomaniacs but I fully recognize that at their cores they are decent, or at least not terrible, guys. Kane is not this. If he wants to try to prove otherwise, he can start the process by apologizing. Not to me, not to his teammates, and not to his fans. But to the old man he dehumanized in Buffalo before being forgiven by countless many for being good at using a stick to hit a small rubber object into a net.

I have never met and will likely never met Jan Radecki. I have never been to Buffalo and I have never even been in a cab. But even years later, as I no longer work in a position in which status is constantly cited to cajole me, it is Mr. Radecki with whom I relate. But in the end, it has less to do with who I was in the summer of 2009 than with who I am in the summer of 2014--a human being with capacity for empathy.