What Matters

By Nick McCann

Now that the All-Star Game matters, it has become even more frustrating than it already was because it means I get sucked in more easily. It is an exhibition game, but it affects the end of the season and this has added more annoying elements to an already annoying annual discussion that can’t seem to stop from happening. In the weeks before the game, people get really upset about who makes it, and who doesn’t make it, and then the game happens, and usually sucks.

Before the new rule about the postseason, when the game happened to be good, it always felt disappointing that it didn’t really matter. It should be cooler now, because it does “matter”, but it isn’t, because the managers never treat it that way. Now, the manager has to try to win, and still hold onto the old code of how an exhibition game-involving other managers’ players-should be handled.

The All-Star Game just needs to happen a week after the World Series in Hawaii. The players would love it, fans would watch, and nobody would miss the Mid Summer Night’s Dream that never goes away, because it would be one less thing shoved down our throats.

Want to read about things I hate about the All-Star Game? Good!

It is half way through the season and the fans get to vote on who starts.
In a perfect world, fans would take into account the performance of the players in the second half and postseason of the previous year. Hot shit rookies usually overshadow performances from late in the season before and Asia apparently has discovered that they can vote on the Internet (Fukadome? Okay, maybe that frustration is carried over from Yao Ming being a starter for the West in the NBA as a rookie). If things were fair, 7 members of the 2007 Rockies would have been on the team after their insane winning streak last September. If you look at the NFL (which apparently you do), their All-Star Game is at the end of the season and it doesn’t matter. The NFL could also buy and sell MLB about 4 times over if it wanted to.

Within the game, the managers always use the best players first and take them out too early.
It’s fine if you want it to be a fluff game to let little kids see the stars, but if it is going to matter, they should somehow be forced to manage the game like they would if they had-I don’t know-a team of All-Stars and it-I don’t know- was supposed to MATTER if they won. Last night Terry Francona took A-Rod out in the middle of an early inning just so he could wave to the New York crowd. I guess he is a true Yankee now. What a lucky star!

Moving on.

Tim McCarver
Should be put down Old Yeller style.

If a team is going to burn all it’s pitchers early in the game, they should be forced to make a position player pitch if it comes down to that.
Last night, as the game went on and on, the one thing that held my attention to finish watching the game was that the American League was running out of throwers. The announcers kept stressing that Scott Kazmir was the last pitcher the AL could use and that he had a very set pitch count to stick to. It was captivating television because it forced me to wonder what Terry Francona would do. If he pulled Kazmir, would he forfeit and give up a home field advantage for his Red Sox club that has a good chance of being in the Word Series? Would Bud Selig find a new way to make one of his own mistakes even worse? I really wanted to see JD Drew come in from right field and try to strike out Adrian Gonzalez. But that would never happen in an All-Star Game because the game is the ultimate display of confident and prideful dudes’ dudes, where the underling theme for all participants is that nobody wants to embarrass them selves. Nobody really wants to play, but nobody wants to be left out of the fraternity. If Jose Canseco was in the game this wouldn't be a problem, because he would gladly embarrass himself. But it would be a problem because the All-Star Game creates problems compounded by problems that never go away.

This bitching probably isn’t fair. I wanted to watch a Netflix movie last night, but sticking with a 15-inning game that matters, will always matter to me, and I will probably be back next year.

Barry Zito

By Nick McCann

I’m really glad to see the Padres bring up half of their roster from Triple A Portland. This season is over and they know it. Sure, you can still hear executives talk about how they don’t know if they are out of it on Mighty 1090 in the afternoon, but that is just because they still need to sell some tickets. Basically the Padres have decided to become what the Giants were supposed to be at the beginning of the year: a team using the season to develop young talent.

However, the Giants realized this in the beginning of the season and now they are a semi-respectable team within the context of the least respectable division in baseball. Everything they do right is a surprise bonus, and everything they do wrong is excused; except one gloriously awesome mistake: Barry Zito.

Barry Zito is a good looking guy. I can say it. Today, when a little boy buys a pack of baseball cards (HA!) with Barry Zito in it and shows the pack to his heterosexual sister to see who she thinks is attractive, she will probably say Barry Zito is the hottest of the bunch. If the sister is in the process of discovering that she is gay, she can also easily imagine Barry with long hair and still think he is hot. Kids are amazing!

Barry Zito also believes he can play guitar like Dave Matthews. And in interviews-before becoming a shell of himself- he would constantly wax on about how he preferred surfing to pitching. He is basically David Wells minus the unapologetic drinking with a few Jack Johnson ripoffs in his (ahem) catalog.

As far as I am concerned, there are two types of native San Diegans: People who to went Uni High and people hate people who went to Uni High. Barry Zito went there, so the fact that his 126 million contract is setting up to be possibly the worst signing in the history of sports, is very exciting for me and people who didn’t go to high school with the Walton brothers.

The 2008 Giants are probably my favorite team in Major League Baseball right now because they no longer have Barry Bonds, they are not the Padres' rival, and they allow me to watch a Uni High Alum suffer at 4-12 while earning almost as much as the Florida Marlins combined.

The Padres signed Mark Prior (a high school teammate of Zito's) to a small fraction of Barry's contract, but at least he never tries to sing.

The Kept Faith officially endorses the San Francisco Giants as the acceptable 3rd place team in the division as long as they spoil things for the Dodgers and Barry Zito loses 20 games.

Badass (not the Mario Van Peebles Movie)

By Nick McCann

Last week former San Diego Chargers linebacker Steve Foley agreed to settle his lawsuit against a police officer who shot him off-duty two years ago and ended his pro football career.

The player was shot in his leg, hip and hand in September 2006 after off duty officer Aaron Mansker followed his car home on suspicion the driver was drunk.

Foley attorney Harvey Levine, said the settlement was reached with Officer Mansker and his employer, the City of Poway, before testimony resumed in the week-old civil trial.

Foley will receive 5.5 million in compensation.

Steve Foley looked like an NFL Linebacker should look because he looked like a badass motherfucker. Badass motherfuckers are guys who right away make you believe that nobody has ever even thought about trying to fight them in public. The difference between scary motherfuckers and badass motherfuckers is very simple. Scary motherfuckers look normal, but surprise you by the scary things they do. Badass Motherfuckers make you believe they have already done them. The best example of this comes from the Police Academy Movie Franchise: Hightower was a Baddass Motherfucker because he intimidated everyone he came across and Tackleberry was a scary motherfucker because he always pulled out a gun in every situation. Both were powerful in their own way, but different in their approach.

On the night where Steve Foley lost his NFL career, he was unfortunate to be a Baddass motherfucker. If his former teammate Doug Flutie, a scary motherfucker in his own right, was doing the same thing that night, would he have gotten shot? Maybe. You never know when you are going to run into an off duty scary motherfucker in Poway.

Losing to The Marlins Rant

By Nick McCann

Last night the Padres lost to a Florida Marlins team that spends a quarter of the payroll and plays to a home crowd that is on average a third of the size. Usually when that thought passes through my mind during a Florida win over the Padres, the next thought naturally passes through my head: they have been a franchise for 15 years and they already have 2 rings.

The first part of the first half of this season was frustrating, and now I have just become numb. The other day, I heard Mark Grant and Matt Vasgersian plan a gay road trip to Sedona Arizona. I caught the end of it and I only hope there was an Axl Rose Chinese Democracy joke in it. The bit was funny but, it was definitely material appropriate for a team in last place, who is probably losing in the ratings to reruns of The House Wives of Orange County on Bravo (I find rooting for the crazy blonde Italian A personality wife who can’t let go of her kids, to be more enjoyable than watching Khalil Greene try really really hard).

The All Star Game is coming up, and not only is it always the biggest waste of time every year, this year, the Padres are the worst team in the league and they have only one player selected to go. Sure, Adrian Gonzalez would make it onto the team in most years, but it feels forced knowing that every team has to have at least one player in the game.

A few years ago, when the Tigers were the Padres, Dimitri Young went hitting 260 with 13 bombs (those numbers are what it feels like when I remember it. I refuse to look up the numbers of Dimitri Young). Years later, he would go on to beat the shit out of a woman at a gas station, but hey, he still is an All-Star.

Adrian doesn’t really show his emotions and he is having a great year, but I feel bad for him because he is the guy that had to go no matter what. He is kind of like the ugly girl who is forced by her parents to go the dance, who ends up sitting in the corner wondering if anybody cares.

Well they probably don't. But I care Adrian. Let’s go to Sedona and see how Axl is doing.

He Teaches Metal Sound

By Nick McCann

Last Wednesday, while attending the Padres/Twins disaster, I walked away from my seat to go buy some fried calamari. I knew ingesting squid at a baseball game was wrong, but everything I could ever possibly desire is available at Petco Park, so I ate it anyways. While waiting in line, I listened in on a conversation between a bored late 20s to mid 30s father and a five year old kid with ice cream all over his face, standing in front of me in line. At one point I heard the kid say to his dad, “I wish we had Tony Gwynn back. He would make us win!” This kid never saw Gwynn play, but he knew he loved him.

I’m constantly having conversations about love with people who say they haven’t ever been in love before. They always ask me whether or not I still define the times I have said I was in love as still being real love whenever I look back. People ask these questions because they are fascinated with the power of love that Huey Lewis sang about. The only thing that can really be learned when you are in love is that it is just plain powerful. The moment that you realize its power is the moment you realize you will never need to ask anybody again what it feels like, if you can do anything about it, or more importantly, if you can ever dismiss those older feelings of love to yourself in an honest way. When you have never felt in love, you think that love might be something that you can be better at; as if there was a certain skill set that can be developed to make you better at loving. This is not possible because you can’t get better at a feeling that raises the stakes that high. If you have ever been in love, you know there is no way to control it and there is no way to prepare yourself for its danger.

I don’t remember a moment in my life where I didn’t love Tony Gwynn. And there has never been a specific instance where I decided I loved him; I just always have. However, the older I get, the more I understand Tony Gwynn for what he really is. I believe Tony Gwynn is the greatest Padre of all time, and I don’t think that will ever change because the Padres will probably never have a player who will have a better career staying completely with the team, and because he possesses a deeply rooted control over the way the team is perceived. No player, manager, front office executive, or owner, can ever take this power away from him, because in San Diego, nobody can ever love another Padre as much as he is loved.

Is this fair? In the reality that Tony Gwynn has created as a player, and as a symbol in the community, fair is something we use our faith in him to believe in. Not only is Tony always right, he has successfully taken on a persona that defines what is right.

Besides his self-destructive eating habits that made the end of his career less productive than it could have been, he was also too talented a hitter to be the specialist that he was. Sure, it is a blessing to have a guy who never strikes out, and can hit the ball anywhere he wants to move a runner, but he could have hit more homeruns. Isn't it a little suspect that Gwynn always seemed focused on keeping his average up? If his average fell below 315 fans freaked out. Batting Average is a stat that looks good in the record books even if you miss a lot of games in a season. I’ll never be convinced that he always had the team in mind when he was on the field. I don’t believe he sabotaged anything, but I think he consciously specialized his game more than he should have to the detriment of the team.

If Gwynn gained a selfish streak when the front office was destroying the team in the early 90s, it would not be wrong of him; it would make him a human. But we were made to believe his talent wasn’t. He was marketed during his playing days as the ultimate scientist of hitting at the major league level. Yet, he has never made an attempt to be a Major League hitting coach in his post-playing career. Instead, he has managed a mediocre college baseball team at San Diego State where he operates on his own terms at a stadium that projects his name on the centerfield fence. When he is not doing that, he spends his time in the booth on Channel 4, dominating a broadcast owned and produced by the Padres. Tony’s complete lack of a sense of humor strips Matt Vasgergian of his comic testicles, and his commentary can never be questioned…ever.

Tony Gwynn sits on top of college mesa as king and the Padres pay him to come down from time to time to let the people hear him speak. We listen, not because we want to hear the truth, but because to us, during a Padre game, the sound of his voice is truth.

Is this year’s squad any better than one of Tony’s forgettable teams? If Tony Gwynn from 1989 was inserted into our lineup and Brian Giles vaporized into thin air (as he should), would the Padres be that much better? Tony Gwynn wouldn’t have a legit leadoff batter to move, and he wouldn’t be able to breathe youth into Trevor Hoffman’s arm. The truth is if Tony Gwynn were on the 2008 Padres, he would make this losing season feel okay. And we would love him for it no matter how dangerous that is.

When that kid standing between me and my squid said we needed Gwynn back, I only heard one sound violently shatter through my head.

PING!

When Athletes Sing

By Nick McCann

The Padres won last night, but again, I decided to watch something else because I assumed they would lose. I guess I was wrong. I guess I want to be wrong more often when it comes to my team.

This morning on the Jim Rome Show, Jim could not shut up about Shane Foster, a NBA second round draft pick, from Vanderbilt, who wrote a song about getting drafted into the NBA and performed it on Youtube. Anybody who thinks NBA players are all overpaid stuck up ego maniacs who have everything handed to them, need to hear Shane sing. He was projected, and drafted in the second round where there is no gurantee that he will make an NBA roster. What you are looking at is a young man who is just happy to get a shot:

He isn't Flannery, but he is coming from the same place.

Choices, Part 2

By Joe Quadres

To make a long story short, I am in a moral quandary. I would like to be a baseball fan, seeing that it is my favorite sport. Naturally, I would like to root for a team. Unfortunately, it matters greatly to me what other people think. I could not stand to be called a traitor or a frontrunner. Well, ok, I could stand it, but I need ammo to defend myself. In some ways, the choice I make defines me as a sports fan. In others, it defines me as a human being.

Here, as I see it, are all of my options:

1. REMAIN A DODGER FAN.
2. BE A FAN OF WHATEVER TEAM IS CLOSEST TO THE CITY I LIVE IN.
3. PICK A TEAM AT RANDOM
4. PICK A TEAM BASED ON WHATEVER CRITERIA I WANT TO.
5. STAY NEUTRAL.

Each of these choices has positives and negatives. I hope by examining each of these options, I will be able to not only make a choice, but shed some light on what it means to be a fan.

1. REMAIN A DODGER FAN.

This is maybe the easiest choice. It means I don’t have to question my identity; I am a Dodger fan and that is that. It allows me to have civic pride. I would be able to say that I rooted for the same team my whole life. All of my baseball memories live in Chavez Ravine. (I was at the game that Chris Gwynn won with an extra inning homer—that’s the kind of thing I mean). I can maintain the bond I have with my father, who rooted for the Dodgers most of his life too. I don’t have to throw anything away or buy new hats.

But hats are the problem. I don’t live in Los Angeles. Other than the fact that most of my friends live there, I don’t miss it all that much. Why should the geography of my birth—hardly a matter of choice—dictate who I root for? Other than geography, the Dodgers have no meaning for me. First of all, the owner has no LA ties. None of the coaches or players do either. Unlike the Padres, who will always have their Tony Gwynn, not one of my Dodger heroes growing up finished with the team. Literally, not one. Every single famous Dodger in my lifetime finished up somewhere else. Valenzuela, Hershiser, Sciocsia (who finished with LA as a player, but is currently managing the Angels which counts to me), Sax, Piazza, Karros. All of these longtime Dodgers finished elsewhere.

So, basically, I am rooting for a hat. It doesn’t matter who’s under that hat, where they came from, how long they’ve been here, etc. If the hat says LA, I’m supposed to root for them. But in light of all of the despicable things this team has done to show me they don’t care about me, is a blue hat really supposed to keep me true? To a city I haven’t lived in for five years and probably will never live in again? This is the hardest part. There is certainly a part of me that feels like not being a Dodger fan is WRONG. As long as they don’t kill puppies during the 7th inning stretch, I’m supposed to stick with them. But the rest of me feels like I don’t owe these current Dodgers a damn thing. Does this make me a traitor, or does it make me a man of principle? A complainer or a real fan of the game? Or neither? Or both?

2. BE A FAN OF WHATEVER TEAM IS CLOSEST.

I have to admit there is some appeal here. I lived in Northwest Indiana and Chicago for four years. While I was not a Cubs or Sox “fan,” I did watch the local news and read the local papers and listen to the local radio so these were the teams I knew best. I bought a Cubs hat. I went to Wrigley Field three or four times and while there, I did cheer for the Cubs.

But this can’t be right, can it? I have no idea where I’ll end up, but right now I’m in Dallas. Am I supposed to be a Rangers’ fan? I don’t think I can do that for a myriad of reasons, most of which are obvious. And even if I do live here the rest of my life, there is something so empty about just rooting for the hometown team and throwing away everything I stood for my whole life.

3. PICK A TEAM AT RANDOM

Again, this would seem ridiculous, but isn’t it the most fair? If I’m not a Dodger fan, it may make sense to just pick a team out of a hat. That way, no one could accuse me of frontrunning or bandwagoning. But what if I picked the Rangers? Or the Marlins? Or the Orioles? There’s no way I can do this. And if I pick a team at random, then throw the team back, the whole exercise is lost.

4. PICK A TEAM BASED ON WHATEVER I WANT.

Definitely some appeal here. There are lots of teams that I kind of like. There are teams with great GMs like the A’s or Red Sox. They appeal to my intellectual side. I like the Indians and the Brewers because they built themselves up from nothing to contention with their farm system. They will succeed or fail in the right way, the way teams used to do it. Part of me wants to be an Angel fan because they are who the Dodgers used to be. Their entire coaching staff is made up of ex-Dodgers they are owned by a guy who is in it to win, not to turn a profit. Most of their team is homegrown and the free agents they do get are (mostly) guys that they want to keep for the long term.

Of course, the problem here is that, in general, these things are cyclical. I don’t mean that teams go from up-years to down-years and I’m not willing to follow; if I can see future potential, then 100 loss seasons are fine. I mean that teams eventually start trading off all of the guys you like. Take the A’s for example. Every year until they have new ownership, the A’s will trade or release every single player they have who will command a big salary. You can never become attached to an Athletic—as soon as they are free agents, they’re gone. So in order to be an A’s fan, you either have to live or have grown up in Oakland and be willing to root for whoever is wearing the green and gold, or you have to be rooting for Mad Genius Billy Beane. While there is something appealing about that, rooting for a GM is hardly romantic or fulfilling. I mean, am I supposed to chant Billy’s name every time he makes a trade? Should I hold up signs saying, “I love you, Billy” every time a no-namer with and high OBP comes up? So the problem with this approach is that, chances are, I’ll never be able to pick a team to stick with. Every five years or so I’ll constantly be shifting teams. Also, if that team does win the Series, they’ll inevitably break-up and in order to try and stay on top, the desperate GMs will hire crap free agents instead of accepting that their run is over. At that point, they will become the teams I dislike and I’m out shopping again.

5. STAY NEUTRAL

This is where I am now. There are some positives. I don’t get depressed when my team loses. I can root for the guys on my Fantasy team no matter who they’re playing. I see the game objectively. It’s almost like watching Lost; I don’t necessarily root for any of the characters to live or die, I just want the show to be entertaining.

But it’s empty here. I want to be depressed when a team loses because it means I can be high when they win. I want to have a passion. I want to be a fan, not an analyst.

Sports is highly ethical. It is the only part of our lives that we expect to be fair. I need your help, Dear Readers. Which of these decisions is the right one? Which can I be proud of? Which one allows me to look in the mirror and say, “I am a ___________ fan for all the right reasons.” The Dodgers will always be the team of my youth and they will always surround the softest parts of me. But as an adult, I have rights, damnit!!! I just need you to tell me what they are.

Complete me. Please.