Fear and Awe in Phoenix

I went to the USA-Mexico WBC game last week, and while it was a rough day for the boys in the red, white and blue, it was decidedly fun for the overwhelmingly pro-Mexico crowd that was packed into Chase Field. The din as the final out grew closer pitch-by-pitch was ear-splitting from my vantage point five rows from the very top of the stadium, and that was with maybe 25,000 people left (almost all of whom were rooting for the baseball incarnation of El Tri). You'd have thought Mexico had just won a gold medal when Jimmy Rollins bounced out to first to end it. But that's all beside the point.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing - Giancarlo Stanton. The man is 6'5", 245 pounds. Absolute freak of a human specimen. I foolishly and a bit absentmindedly showed up to the stadium about an hour before the first pitch, and so was disappointed to have missed Team USA's batting practice - more specifically, Stanton's batting practice. This is because what The Player Formerly Known as Mike Stanton can do to a baseball is absolutely terrifying.

Fun With Statistics

Numbers are a funny thing. They never lie, provided the ones you're using are accurate and calculated correctly. But they can definitely not tell the whole truth, when not put in the proper context. Here are two examples.

Incontrovertible Fact #1: Albert Pujols had by far the worst season of his career this year. In fact, the past two years have been undoubtedly the two statistically worst of his career.

Incontrovertible Fact #2: Albert Pujols had a season this year - and an average season over the past two years - that, by using fairly common stats, was matched by very few hitters.

The Great Hambino

No, not this guy.



This guy.

Brett Favre is Dumb, but Josh Hamilton is Incredible

You know that memo to Brett Favre that I wrote 2 years ago, and wanted him to read? I don't think he did. My God, I am completely and utterly tired of the endless "drama" every summer since he left Green Bay. It's pretty obvious at this point, contrary to what this *at the time* awesome ad was referring to - Favre's indecisiveness is nothing more than a contrived scheme to keep him out of training camp. So what if he's 40? If the man wants to play in the NFL, he ought to go through training camp like everyone else. And if - as he claimed this year - medical issues prevent him from doing so, he ought to be way more upfront about his intentions. The guy is a gloryhound who enjoys playing the media like a violin, and media outlets like ESPN (witness their breathless coverage of his reported retirement by text a few weeks ago) are all too happy to oblige.

Just because he's Brett Favre, iron man, doesn't entitle him to skip training camp. Just because he's Brett Favre, NFL legend and holder of several records, doesn't mean he gets special treatment. But the Vikings, lacking the guts to play hardball, are all too willing to go along with Favre's games. It must really suck to be Tarvaris Jackson right now.

The REAL Natural

Normally, I'm going to try and stay away from using too many superlatives, too much gaudy language, too many outrageous stances, and too many words in all caps. I see that as just an extension of the countless screaming matches that pervade both the blogosphere and TV shows these days, and a shameless attempt to drag in more readers. But there are some special cases where that mentality gets thrown out the window, and all the stops just have to be pulled out. What Josh Hamilton did last night at Yankee Stadium ranks as one of them.