The Conspiracies Are Bigger In Texas

Big 12 fans appear to be in for an exciting finish to league play, with the final two byes for the conference tournament basically still up for grabs.  More on that in a moment.  BUT FIRST, I have to cry foul.  Somebody has to. 

The Big 12 Conference is trying its darnedest to GIVE the basketball conference championship to Texas.

Let me step back for a second.  I’m not typically a conspiracy theorist.  And as a Kansas fan, I understand that those who hate KU generally feel that we’re the ones who get all the calls and all the preferential treatment.  And I KNOW that there truly are no “Big 12 Officials,” and that these guys are merely independent contractors who all work multiple leagues (by the way, this is a cool site where you can track all D-1 officials.  What games they work, what leagues they work in, what their foul trends are, etc.  It’s really kind of neat).

But all of that said, what’s happening for Texas this year is unprecedented.  You know, half the league dropped their shorts for Bevo this past summer.  Handed Texas their wallets.  Begged them to keep the league together, no matter the cost.  Who’s to say that part of the deal didn’t include a clause that a little special treatment was going to be coming their way from the guys in zebra shirts? (no amount of zebra help was going to save the UT football team this year, by the way—they had to shift the aid over to basketball)

I study the conference statistic charts at least once a week, usually more.  I was taken aback by how few free throws Texas opponents have shot this year in conference games, and how gargantuan their free throw differential is.  So for fun, I took a quick peak at the stats for conference games for the past four (’07-’08 through the present) seasons.  Not enough to form a LONG TERM opinion, but I thought it might tell us a little something.

In a way, the evidence kind of supports the belief I’ve always had, and that’s that good teams find a way to get to the free throw line, AND find a way to limit their fouling.  In fact, for the four years, 15 out of the 20 teams that finished in the top 5 in free throw differential also finished in the top 5 in league (or in the case of this year, are currently top 5 in the standings).

Believe it or not, Kansas is NOT the leader in free throw differential.  Texas A&M is the RUNAWAY leader at +378.  They have been in the top two in the conference for all four years.  Kansas is a distant second at +198.  Not surprising, Missouri is actually last in the league at -167, but that is severely skewed by the -156 they put up on 2008.  Anderson’s teams hadn’t yet learned to put their opponents through “40 minutes of hell” without hacking the cr@p out of people.

Of the previous three years, the widest free throw differential was the +138 that A&M posted in 2009.  Through only 13 games, Texas is CURRENTLY at +131.  They are on pace to end up with a +161 free throw differential for THIS YEAR ALONE.  That’s a mere 37 fewer than what Kansas has pulled off in nearly four seasons combined!

On the flip side, the fewest free throws any team has allowed in a year was A&M’s 273 allowed in 2009.  Texas is on pace to allow only 252 free throws this year.

KEEP IN MIND….Texas is the statistical defensive leader right now in conference play.  They live in their opponent’s shorts, lead the league in blocked shots and in opponent’s shooting percentage.  And somehow, their opponents go to the line less often than anyone else’s.  For comparison, Kansas is second in the league in FG% defense, and their opponents have attempted 52 more free throws than Texas’ opponents.  Something is WRONG.

I don’t think any single game illustrates what the officials are doing better than the one game Texas actually managed to LOSE.  To reset the finish, Nebraska was up by 11 points with 1:41 left on the clock.  To that point, Texas had gone to the free throw line only 16 times (that’s 16 times in the first 38:16 of the game).  In that last 1:41, the referees put Texas on the line TWELVE TIMES!  Half of that number came from two controversial (bordering on horse sh!t) fouls on 3-poing shots.  Conveniently, Texas managed to tie the game, erasing an 11-point deficit in a little more than a minute.  Nebraska managed to hit enough free throws of their own (after a Texas miss) to close it out, but the officials did everything in their power to give the Longhorns the victory.

OK, NOW THAT I’VE GOT THAT OUT OF MY SYSTEM……The conference race looks pretty good from here on out.  Not necessarily for the first two spots—those are all-but-clenched for UT and KU, although the order of the two is still slightly in doubt. 

Of the final two remaining first-round byes, Texas A&M is clearly the favorite to secure one.  At 9-4, and one of their three remaining games being Texas Tech at home, a record worse than 10-6 seems unfathomable, and that’s certainly going to be good enough for third or fourth this year.

After A&M, Mizzou and Kansas State are basically in a virtual tie for fourth.  Missouri has the one-game lead right now, but with their win over Kansas, K-State takes the upper hand in determining tie-break criteria later on, should Kansas State beat Missouri in The Octagon on Saturday.  Outside of that, Missouri actually doesn’t have a game left that you look at and say, “That’s a sure win.”  They play at Kansas State, then at Nebraska, and get Kansas at home.  I will not argue with anyone that has them finishing up anywhere from 8-8 to 11-5.  Every scenario between feels absolutely possible, to me.

My gut, though, says that Kansas State is going to end up getting the final bye.  They usually split with Missouri, and they’re playing well enough right now to feel like they SHOULD beat the Tigers in Manhattan.  Kansas State does get a home “gimme” game when Iowa State comes into town on the last day of the season.  Even if they can’t upset Texas in Austin, 9-7 is looking very likely for the Wildcats, and I suspect that will be enough to pull the tie-break from Missouri, if Mizzou finishes 1-2.

Baylor, Nebraska and Colorado are probably all alive for byes, sitting at 6-7 right now.  But a whole lot of stuff is going to have to happen for them to get a bye.  Colorado does have the tie-breaker over Kansas State, so that would come into play if they’re both 9-7 and tied for 4^th.  That starts to look possible if the Buffalos pull off the upset at home over Texas this Saturday.  If they don’t they’re done.  Nebraska got swept by Kansas State, but could even the series with Missouri next week.  Baylor has a pretty tough row to hoe, with home games against A&M and Texas sandwiched around a trip to Stillwater.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, friends, and we’re only getting started!!!!!

Will Alex Get His Gordon?

This is a pretty new blog, so every time you read a take here, it’s probably going to be the first time you hear me make it.  For my buddies who have heard this next piece like a broken record for the past three seasons, please stay with me just one more time.  I PROMISE, this is going to be the last year I make it (and THIS TIME, I mean it).

 

I’m a sick man—don’t claim to be anything to the contrary.  I simply have not found a way to cure my (possibly) irrational belief that Alex Gordon will, some day, be a consistently successful major league baseball player.

 

LET ME QUALIFY THAT.  I’ve come to accept that Alex will never reach his potential, or more accurately, reach the level that all of us THOUGHT was his potential.  Coming out of Nebraska, everyone (not just Royals fans, but everyone who writes or talks about these things) thought Alex had the potential to be a future baseball hero.  A perennial All-Star.  A Triple Crown candidate.  His lone season in the minors (before the send-downs and rehab stints, but more on that later) did nothing but INCREASE his expectations—he ended 2006 as the Minor League Player of the Year and found himself at #2 on Baseball America’s list of top prospects in the game.

 

Even the most die-hard of all Alex Gordon apologists (and I’m not far from cracking the top 5 or 10 on that list) has come to understand that those expectations simply don’t fit the type of major league player Alex will ever be.  And I’m OK with that.  If you’ve read Michael Lewis’ classic “Moneyball*,” there are some Billy Beane comparisons there, in that Alex is a similar physical specimen who can’t wrap his own head around his abilities.  But I don’t think Alex is in danger of being demoted to minor league scout anytime soon.

 

*By the way, the film version of “Moneyball,” staring Brad Pitt, is scheduled for at September release, and this fact makes me a little bit moist.  I’m willing to forgive Pitt for being a native Missourian.  I’d even offer native Kansan Melissa Etheridge in a one-for-one trade for Pitt.  And if that’s not good enough, I’ll even throw in Amelia Earhart to sweeten the pot.  

 

For all that Alex needs to remediate in his game, let me concentrate for a few moments on the things he already does pretty well.

 

Alex hits dongs at an acceptable rate, especially considering the park he plays in.  In fact, if Alex had been able to be healthy to this point in his career (he has not), and if we could expect him to stay healthy for a reasonable-length MLB career (we cannot), Alex would be the Royals all-time home run king around the age of 40 or 41—roughly the age George Brett was when he retired (with Alex playing about 3 less seasons than George).  That would assume he hits dongs at his current career pace and did not improve, even though you would expect a player to hit dongs more often when he’s 28-to-31 than he did when he was 23 to 26.

 

For his career, Alex launches a dong ever 36.47 plate appearances.  That compares favorably to both Brett for his career (George launched one ever 36.67 PAs) and Billy Butler to this point (Billy hits one every 39.78 PAs).  BY THE SAME AGE (26), Brett had only been hitting a dong every 51.55 PAs.  So at a comparable age, Alex is actually pretty far advanced in dong-launching, compared to the greatest Royal ever.

 

Alex is also pretty darn decent at drawing a walk.  This is an area where he made a MASSIVE improvement from his rookie year to his sophomore campaign (improving from a walk every 14.63 PAs to one every 8.65 PAs).  He’s actually held steady in the walks category, never falling worse than a walk every 9 PAs in the past three years.  Even with his rookie year considered, Alex is averaging a walk every 10.13 PAs.

 

For comparison, Brett averaged a walk every 10.61 PAs for his career.  BUT by the age Alex is right now, Brett was only averaging a walk every 14.62 PAs.  Butler is currently averaging a walk every 11.7 PAs, and has never done better than one ever 11.39 in any single season.

 

SO IF ALEX GORDEN is on pace to be the greatest Royal dong-launcher of all-time, and is drawing walks at a more-than-acceptable pace, then what’s the modern stats-conscious baseball dork not to love?

 

Well, for starters, he just hasn’t been able to stay healthy.  Hitting is all about rhythm and confidence, and Alex hasn’t been able to find either at the major league level since his second year in the league.

 

LET ME BE PERFECTLY CLEAR.  I believe Alex Gordon had found his hitting rhythm by the end of his second major league season.  We weren’t yet seeing all he was capable of becoming, but we were seeing a fine major league player who was proving that he could adjust and improve.

 

People look at Alex’ rookie hitting line of .247/.314/.411 and say, “So what?  Slightly under league average.  Nothing to get excited about.”  But I, on the other hand, look at the hole he dug for himself through the first two-and-a-half months of the season (he was sitting at .173/.285/.281 at one point in June) and say, “With no send-down to work on things, he was able to turn THAT into .247/.314/.411 in a little over 4 months?  Now what’s not to appreciate about that effort?”  Then he followed it up with a sophomore campaign that saw him land on the RIGHT side of the OPS+ line at 109.  He walked more often, struck out a little less often, and even got a little better in the power area.

 

BUT he also saw his first stint on the DL in that second season, and it started the all-too-familiar string of Gordon injuries, some of which have been pretty darn severe.  Since Gordon’s first stint on the DL in 2008, here are the number of games he’s been able to play between RETURN trips to the DL, or trips to AAA to work on something broken from his injuries/time off:

 

19 games.

42 games.

12 games.

62 games (this is his active streak as of the end of last season).

 

In roughly the past two-and-a-half seasons, injuries have limited him to less than a full year’s worth of games played, and the very end of last season was the first time he was able to stay with the major league team for more than a quarter of a season at a time.

 

Simply put—he hasn’t been around enough to find that rhythm again, and even when he’s been here, he simply has not been anywhere near 100%, health-wise.  I’m CONVINCED that a consistently-healthy Alex can be an effective player at this level.  Whether he’s capable of getting and remaining healthy is an entirely separate question, and one that he’ll have to answer year-by-year.

 

The other side of his game that appears to be consistently bad regardless of whether he’s healthy or not is his complete inability to avoid the strikeout.  He did make a small improvement from year one to year two, and perhaps a healthier Alex might have progressed further to this point in that area.  But the bottom line is that Alex has struck out once ever y 4.53 PAs to this point in his career.  For reference, George Brett struck out once every 14.62 PAs for his career, and Billy Butler is currently striking out once every 7.48 PAs.

 

Alex is NEVER going to approach either of those numbers at any point in his career.  I see nothing to suggest otherwise—he’s a hard-swinger at heart, and he misses a helluva lot of balls.  Getting that number to one K every 5 or 6 PAs would be nice.  His batting average on balls put in play (BABIP) has never been GREAT, per se.  But it was above league-average for his two “healthy” seasons.  Putting more balls into play with a HOPEFULLY healthier swing would do wonders for his ability to stay in this league and be successful here.

 

BOTTOM LINE….This is it, for me.  I’m going to officially give up on Alex if either of two scenarios plays out this year.  The first “give up” scenario:  Alex proves he’s unable to get through the majority of the season without getting seriously hurt.  The second:  Alex actually stays healthy and proves me WRONG in my beliefs that he can be an effective player.

 

Here’s to hoping that we’re all pleasantly surprised by the career that Alex gives us from this point forward.

What once was good, and could be again...

I can’t do it.  I simply cannot get through a full reading of James Earl Jones’ immortal “People will come” speech from the 1989 masterpiece “Field of Dreams” without getting choked up a little.  I’m going to quote a small passage from the speech, which I find particularly pertinent to the way most die-hard Royals fans are feeling right about now:

“The one constant through all the years…has been baseball.  America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers.  It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.  But baseball has marked the time.  This field, this game, is a part of our past…It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”

(Two quick side notes and I’ll get back on track.  Of all the cornfields in Iowa, why would the makers of Field of Dreams select a plot of land that covers two separate properties on which to shoot the film?  There’s a property line that runs smack dab through the outfield.  It’s caused nothing but trouble through the years.  The field has been preserved as a tourist attraction, but at various times, owners of one side or the other have done things to pi$$ off the owners of the other side.  One will want to plant part of it, or they’ll disagree about operations hours, etc.  It really is quite a mess.  During my first visit, circa 1993, I purchased a small bottle of soil that specifically says “From LEFT Field of Dreams” on it.  There are separate souvenir stands, separate driveways—it’s really quite messy.  BUT the portion of the field with the farm house and the buildings is now for sale, if you’re looking for a business opportunity.  

The other note:  There are really only two “James Earls” that everyone in America knows.  I’ve always found it interesting that one James Earl was the convicted murder of the greatest civil rights advocate of the 20^th century, and the other is one of the greatest character actors of all time, who also happens to be black.  I always thought it would be a horrific shame for somebody to confuse the two names, and then it happened.  How horrible was THAT?  Seriously, I don’t even think they’d try a joke like that in a Hangover-like film.)
OK, back to the story.

For me, the Royals have always marked the times.  Like a lot of 70s kids in the area, a lot of my earliest memories were winning Royals teams.  It all seemed so easy, like a given, that the Royals would always be good.  When we finally came out as World Series champions in 1985, it didn’t even faintly occur to me that we wouldn’t continue to head back to the playoffs nearly every year.  I didn’t realize how extremely fortunate we were to compile such an unusually talented stockpile of players at the same time, and how close most of them were to the end of the road.

Then the road ran out, and the talent all went to pasture, and nothing came in to replace them.
Oh, we’ve had nice bits and pieces float in and out from time to time.  Cy Youngs.  Rookies of the Year.  All-Star game winning pitchers.  Even the occasional winning season (none since 2003, but a few splattered in throughout the years).  Outside of a few glimmers of light shining through the clouds, the only positive experiences for the Royals fan have been the times when we can place ourselves in the bleachers, close our eyes and take a walk back through the memories of “what once was good.”

And now, finally, I feel like the time for the rest of the quote is mere months, or maybe a year or two, away.  “What once was good, and could be again.”

When I hear the tails of the talent that Dayton Moore has amassed in this organization, I feel 25 years of armor built around my wounded soul start to loosen and peel away, layer by layer.  Enough people saying the same things, time and time again, can’t possibly be all full of it—there has to be some truth to these rumors.

When I hear Bob Fescoe talk about guys launching balls into the next park, or Danny Clinkscale talking about the amazing physical specimen that Eric Hosmer has grown into, it takes me back to the time when I was just an innocent kid, asking Dad if we could turn the game on the radio as we traveled across Kansas or Missouri.  I can hear Denny’s majestic voice, pimping Guys potato chips or Kansas City Life Insurance between pitches.

It’s almost like I expect the world my five children are growing up in to be a little bit better than the one I knew after 1985, and if they’re lucky, maybe even close to as good as the one I knew before that time.

Jacob And The Miracles?

I have been debating about whether to write this article or not for quite a while.  I started strongly reconsidering it on Monday, after Kansas State beat the tar out of Kansas in the Octagon of Doom.  I’m humble enough to realize that what I write really doesn’t have any power to do anything at all.  But I can’t get the thought out of my head that by writing what I’m about to write, I’m gonna reverse-jinx it and it’s all going to come to pass, and I’m going to regret it.  But what the hell?  I’ve been thinking it long enough that it’s probably worse saying.

 

This Kansas State teams is eerily familiar to me.  Frighteningly familiar, to be honest.  The team they most resemble to me:  the 1988 National Champion Kansas Jayhawks.

 

The similarities are uncanny.  Let’s start from the very beginning:

 

Both started the year with a preseason All American (Danny Manning, Jake Pullen).

 

Both started the year in the top 10 (Kansas was #7, Kansas State, #3).

 

Both plummeted rapidly and found themselves outside the Top 25 before they knew it.

 

Through 20 games in 1987-1988, Kansas was 12-8.  Through 20 games this year, Kansas State was 13-7.

 

Both started conference play 1-4.

 

Both lost two players who were supposed to be impact contributors to the team.  The departures of Judge and Asprilla are fresh on everyone’s mind, but in 1988, Kansas lost two players who were AT LEAST as important as those two were, maybe more so.  Starting senior forward Archie Marshall was lost 11 games in to his second ACL tear, and starting junior center, Marvin Branch, was lost 14 games in to academic issues.  Marshall and Branch were the #4 and #5 leading scorers on the team at the time.  Branch was second on the team in rebounding, and Marshall was hitting 55% from behind the 3-point line.

 

As in 1988, Kansas and Kansas State have split their regular season series.

 

In the case of Kansas, after limping to a 12-8 start through 20 games, they actually began playing pretty inspired basketball.  For the rest of the season, KU lost only 3 games:  to Kansas State (eventual Elite Eight participant), Duke (who made the Final Four) an Oklahoma (who made the Finals of the NCAA tournament).  Then, they avenged ALL THREE of those in a row in their last three games of the Big Dance.  Meanwhile, Kansas State is now 4-2 since their 13-7 start.  The Colorado loss doesn’t fit the comparison, but the other loss was to Kansas (and they’ve actually already avenged that).  If I were betting right now, I’d bet they experience only one more loss before the conference tournament, so the model could still work.

 

As you can see, the similarities really are quite remarkable.  There’s no reason to believe the Wildcats can’t be similarly capable of a similar run through the rest of the year.

 

STOP!!! I know what you’re thinking.  “Oh yeah?  Well Danny Manning ain’t walking through those purple doors, Longball.”  OK, fair enough.  There was only one Danny, with his ability to work Miracles.  BUT IN A SENSE….isn’t Jacob Pullen kind of an overwhelmingly poverty-stricken man’s Danny Manning?  Think about it:

 

Has Jake received all sorts of conference and national accolades like Danny did?  CHECK!

 

Can Jake put a team on his back and carry them to victory against incredible odds, Like Danny?  CHECK! (anyone doubting might want to ask Bill Self)

 

Is Jake going to finish his career as his Alma Mater’s all-time leading scorer, like Danny did?  CHECK!

 

Do I really believe all of this is going to end up with a storybook ending for the Purple Nation?  No, not really.  Maybe if they wouldn’t have already put out a disk commemorating their historic victory over Kansas on Big Monday.  You can’t have two DVD-worthy events in one season, and they already blew their wad on the first disk. 

 

BUT MY POINT IS…neither I nor anyone else saw 1988 coming, either.  The Wildcats resurrecting their season to achieve greatness has seemed like a long shot for weeks now.  But history shows us that even long shots pull one out every now and then.

The EMAW Strikes Back

When I got to my desk today at work, I had a 20-oz grape Gatorade and a pack of grape Bubblicious waiting for me.  I’ve got an awful lot of Purple subordinates in this department, walking that line.  It’s OK.  I was a good sport.  I had a hunch which one was the culprit, so I walked right over to her cube, unscrewed the Gatorade cap, and slowly drank it in front of her.  She appreciated it.  I was taking my medicine.  Anything for my employees. 

As poorly as Kansas played yesterday, if you would have told me they were going to shoot 44% and score 68 points in “The Bram,” I would have bet a fair piece that KU was going to win the game.  That should have been enough—last year featured a MUCH BETTER Kansas State team and a comparable KU team, and the game in the Bram was 69-69 going into overtime. 

But these things happen.  I kept telling my KSU buddies here at work (who were all convinced that the ‘Cats were gonna get rolled) that Kansas State was going to go one or two ways after the Colorado heartbreaker—they would either roll over and die, or they would have a chip on their shoulder so big that the dam was going to burst.  It was Big Monday, on the biggest stage, against their biggest rival with a BRAND NEW #1 target on their back in front of what was going to be their best crowd of the year.  If they couldn’t find their pride for this one, then they didn’t have a pulse.

Let’s put it into perspective how good Kansas State was yesterday, especially Pullen:

--Kansas State came in shooting a league-worst 43.5% from the field.  Kansas had the league’s third-BEST field goal defense (38.8%).  So, of course, Kansas State goes out and shoots 56% from the field.

--Kansas State came in shooting a league-worst 61.5% from the free throw line.  So, of course, they go 24 for 29 from the line (83%).

--Jake Pullen came in shooting a putrid 32.8% for 3-pointers this season, AND Kansas had the league’s second-BEST three-point defense (28.6%).  So, of course, Jake hits 5 for 6 from behind the arc (83.3%).

Like I said before, Kansas didn’t play well.  There were plenty of things I saw from my team that I didn’t like.  But I’m not going to talk about those, because I don’t want to sound like a spoiled sport, here.  I’m going to give credit where credit is due.  Kansas State played, BEYOND A DOUBT, their best game of the year—their best game of the Frank Martin era.  I’ll shoot down any arguments that it wasn’t.

Good for them.  Of course I’d like to play them again in the conference tournament, and get a chance to settle the score.  But until then, I’ll be cheering for Kansas State to win every game they play.  I have selfish reasons (like Texas needing to loose two games for KU to have a shot at extending their conference winning streak to seven).  But I also want to see Frank continue to steer the ship in Manhattan for years to come.  He’s highly entertaining, and some of the things he’s said in the past week (like talking about ripping a fan’s head off in the stands in Boulder) started to make me wonder if he’s about to do something to get himself fired with cause.  I think the chance of that happening is less now.


*** Addendum ***


The first comment below proposes a splendid idea.  Here goes...

 

Jeff Withey = C3PO.  Tall.  Skinny.  Not particularly skilled, doesn’t contribute anything, but funny in a “laugh-at” sort of way.  Majoring in Communications (Seriously, I didn’t make that up).

 

Markieff Morris = Chewbacca.  Tall, long, mad skills, bit of a temper problem.  For some unknown reason, likes to play the subservient role to his best buddy (which is Marcus, so I’m stretching it a little, since I’m not putting Marcus in the Han role).

 

Marcus Morris = Luke Skywalker.  Can be a little whiney and unlikable, but has unparalleled skills and ends up being the hero.  Doesn’t know his father.

 

Thomas Robinson = Han Solo.  Easily the most entertaining character of the bunch, but gets much too little screen time.  Spent half the season on the shelf (frozen in carbonite?), but is probably capable of pulling the hottest chicks out of the whole bunch.

 

Danny Manning = Master Yoda.  Has more skills than the sum of both rosters, combined.  Could probably still hold his own out there, but he’s getting old and slow.  Could turn anyone who would listen into a master, themselves, if they would just “learn control.”

 

Tyshawn Taylor = R2D2.  Always gets himself into trouble, and no one can understand a thing he says.  But usually finds a way to be useful and does enough good things to resist the temptation to toss him to the scrap heap.

 

Josh Selby = Lando.  Kind of a shady side to him, but his game is usually oh-so smooth.

 

Curtis Kelly = Jaba the Hutt.  A little overweight, a little lazy.  Not a particularly good role model.

 

Jacob Pullen = Boba Fett.  Clearly has the skills, and could be a force to be reckoned with, but will probably end up shooting himself into the Pit of Sarlacc.

 

Frank Martin = Darth Vader.  Can choke you to death merely by staring at you.  In the end, he comes back from the dark side to join Bill’s staff and we learn that he’s Marcus and Markieff’s father (which explains their surly nature).

Why Did The Royals Miss The Steriod Party?

I’m going to be upfront and honest about this.  There’s really only one thing about baseball’s “steroids era” that really and truly bothers me, and that’s that more Royals didn’t jump on the PED bandwagon when they could.  I mean, our team dong record has sat at 36 for over 25 years, for crying out loud.  A couple trips to BALCO and maybe Bob “The Hammer” Hamlin could have put a 50 on the board.

 

OK, I’m not REALLY advocating illegal drug use, here.  But the truth is that the fact some of these guys were using PEDs when there was no MLB testing policy against it really doesn’t bother me that much.  Perhaps I’m being a bit laissez faire about all of this, but my supposition is that players in most eras have done things (or would, if they could) out of the realm of what’s natural to try to enhance their performance.  If you’ve read Jim Bouton’s masterpiece “Ball Four,” you’ll see that players in the late 1960s were popping “greenies” like candy, and if they weren’t actually helping them to play better, they at least clearly thought they were.

 

I’m glad there’s a testing policy now, and I’m glad the game has gotten cleaner.  I just don’t see the point in running the last generation through the mud.  We enjoyed them as players, and the league didn’t give two squirts about what they were using at the time.  We can’t have our cake and eat it, too.  Hold guys to the standards of the time, and for this particular period of the game, using PEDs were a viable, and, arguably, perfectly LEGAL option, as far as the MLB was concerned.

 

That brings us to the more difficult side of the coin:  the criminal justice realm.  Guys that used steroids, more often than not, broke the law at one time or another.  They used illegal drugs.  They used illegal or immoral means to acquire them.  This part is not up for debate—the government has a legal right to prosecute alleged criminals for their actions.

 

But none of these athletes are actually getting prosecuted for actually USING performance enhancing drugs.  Rather, they’re all getting indicted for LYING about their (alleged) drug use.  That’s what they’ve got on them—perjury.  Contempt.  Obstruction of justice.  We (you and I) have spent MILLIONS of dollars building cases against athletes to prove that they didn’t tell the truth about their behavior that was allowed by their employer. 

 

You might have seen in the news that the feds have reduced the number of felony charges against Barry Bonds from 11 to five.  If Barry is convicted, and if the judge pays attention to federal sentencing guidelines for guys like Barry with no previous felony convictions, Bonds stands to spend somewhere between 15 and 21 months in federal prison.

 

15 to 21 months?  Are you kidding me?  There are federal employees who have personally made hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary for the time they’ve billed while building this case for years, and we’re talking about 15 to 21 months in jail?  Bare in mind, there’s a guy named Anderson who (allegedly) provided Barry with his drugs in the first place, and he’s sat in jail for roughly that long for refusing to testify against his buddy, Barry.

 

Don’t get me wrong—I believe Bonds is a world-class A-hole, and I don’t feel even one ounce of sorrow for him and his plight.  Mama taught me to tell the truth and be responsible for my actions.  But it infuriates me that MY GOVERNMENT thinks this is a big enough deal to waste this much time, effort and resources for the possibility that the guy walks after less than two years in jail—if they manage to convict him AT ALL (a pretty sketchy proposition, when their key witness is happy sitting in jail, rather than testifying).

 

My sentiments to the feds on this one mirror the ones I send out to all my fellow baseball geeks enraged about the steroid era:  Let it go, guys.  It’s just not worth it.

Kevin Kietzman: Evil Genius

Let me start with an admission—I actually like "Between the Lines" on 810 radio in Kansas City. My evening commute puts me in the fortunate position of being able to choose sports talk radio from any of four ABSOLUTELY FREE local channels—580, 610, 810 and 1410 on the AM dial. I don’t have to listen to Kevin Kietzman. I choose to do it, because time-and-time again, his show is the best. It sounds professional, they generally know what they’re talking about and they all have the experience it takes to run a successful sports program. They consistently destroy whatever it is the competition throws up there in the time slot—the variety show of crap 610 runs across the waves has been either sad or comical, depending on how you look at it (although I do like Nick Wright in measured doses from time to time).

 

So I FULLY ADMIT that I have no one to blame but myself for this. Don’t have any pity on me. I choose what goes into my ears, and I live with the consequences.

 

Nine times out of 10, I understand why Kietz says the things he does. He wants to be provocative. He wants to get people riled up a little—it makes for good radio. He has no personal pride when it comes to these things—Kietzman knows that half (or more) of his listeners think he’s a douche. He doesn’t care—they keep tuning him in, which drives his sponsorship opportunities, which makes money for him, the station and his advertisers, and allows Kansas City to have the last QUALITY, FREE entertainment medium in their cars every day. It’s a WIN-WIN for everyone involved.

But when it comes to the pure venom that can occasionally leak out of his brain and onto the radio dial when it comes the University of Kansas, sometimes it’s almost more than even I can bare, and I even "get" the guy. I can’t imagine what the people who don’t usually listen to his show thought when they tuned him in yesterday.

 

Let me set it up—this is Segment Two of Kevin’s weekly conversation with Mitch Holtus. The conversation is on Curtis Kelly. Mitch is playing it cool—he’s not falling for Kevin’s traps that everybody smokes pot and it’s no big deal, and some schools just care about this more than others and blah, blah, blah.

 

You can just FEEL the frustration that Kietz is having with his own alma mater right now. It’s tangible—he’s backed into a corner. And the only way a man as stubborn as Kietzman knows how to get out of a corner is to come out swinging with offense of his own.

 

SO

he turns to countless back-handed "compliments" lobbed at the University of Kansas, all with the intention of making the atrocities going down in Manhattan not seem so bad, by comparison. Let me PARAPHRASE for a second (although these are not far off from exact quotes):

 

Kietz

: What we’re seeing is Frank Martin taking a page out of Bill Self’s book, right? You know, over at Kansas we see this time and time again. Guys breaking all the rules and Self finding a way to keep them eligible and in school, etc., etc.

 

Mitch makes an attempt to settle Kevin down a little at this point. He tells him that he knows that the Kansas program has stringent rules and requirements for the behavior of their athletes, etc. Back to paraphrasing Kevin, here (although the part about the Morris twins might be an EXACT QUOTE. Check the tape at the 5:29 PM mark, if you fell like looking at the archives):

 

Kietz

: Yeah, but they don’t keep their own rules. You got Morningstar with DUIs, Mario Little assaulting women, the Morris twins shooting little old ladies with B.B. guns out their window, and they all still find a way to stay on the team….blah, blah, blah….

 

OK, so Kevin accomplished his goal. He got listeners, like me, thinking about something other than the crap Kelly has pulled and the disgrace it would be if he actually plays basketball again at Kansas State. Kevin is forcing me to mentally correct errors in his facts, and to make the defense that what Self has done in the past does not compare to this particular situation. Game, set, match---Kevin Kietzman. His douche-baggery got the job done, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

 

Let me say this—there have been NO thrice-suspended Jayhawks on Bill Self’s watch that went on to play another game for him (not to mention the trouble that went into Kelly getting booted from UConn, in the first place. He started his time at KSU with two strikes, in my book).

 

There were no "Morris twins" shooting little old ladies with B.B. guns. There was ONE twin (Markieff) who let an errant Air Soft round (plastic, mind you—boys shoot each other with them all the time) hit the mother of another student athlete. Hardly the dual-pronged assault on the AARP that Kevin described.

 

The only time we’ve ever seen significant repeat offenses off the court resulted in two starters (Giles and Giddens) being exiled to lesser programs for their troubles.

 

The saddest part of all is that I know what Kietzman is and what he does, and that he occasionally has the power to piss me off like no one else on the dial.

 

And I’ll tune him in again tonight. Kevin, I wish I knew how to quit you.

A Purple Train Wreck

I have to hand it to my buddies.  They’ve been good sports.  Like a lot of guys from the Kansas City area, some of my very best friends have Wildcat and Tiger affiliations.  Nobody’s perfect, but they’re all great dudes.  We share our common bonds of all things Kansas City—our professional teams, the world’s greatest barbecue, Boulevard Beer, the Steamboat Arabia Museum (I can’t back that.  I might be the only one that would go see the Arabia more than once a decade).  But when it comes to our alma maters, the smack talk can be brutal and plentiful, but all in good fun.

 

Generally speaking, the smack is pretty one-sided during basketball season.  Of what do the others have to brag?  But this is the first year I’ve spilled a little of the mild venom over into the public forum, with the creation of this blog, and the response from my pals has been overwhelmingly positive—even if my fun has been at the expense of their school ties, mostly aimed at the MU side so far.

 

INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH, though, it was the Kansas State side of the aisle which spent a great deal of time ruffling up their tail feathers before the season started.  In my many years of fanhood, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Wildcat Nation as confident going into a season as I did this year.  I heard it all—everything from, “This will be the year we sweep football AND basketball,” to “Kansas is down.  Look what you lost, and look what we return,” to “Kelly, Judge AND adding Asprilla?  That’s the best front court in the nation, baby!”

 

What has followed has been nothing short of a complete abortion.  Just an atrocity, the likes of which I’ve never seen around these parts.  We’re talking Julia Roberts marrying Lyle Lovett.  David Glass buying the Royals.  The fourth season of “Big Love.”  Tragic, tragic stuff, here.

 

As of this writing, Curtis Kelly was still a member of the Kansas State men’s basketball team.  By the time it’s posted, he might not still be.  I wouldn’t be at all shocked if his “appeal” of the punishment for his (alleged) transgressions happen to conveniently last till about next Tuesday—just enough time to allow him to play one last emotional game in the Octagon of Doom against Kansas (as his team boards on the brink of sure elimination from NCAA Tournament consideration).  But his time is coming.

 

What kind of a coach can possibly survive this kind of a complete disaster with his job still intact?  We’re talking about a guy who started out with his team ranked #3 in the nation coming off of an Elite Eight bid, picked to win the conference, and now he’s on the brink of having to work his way into an NIT game (which his best player won’t play in anyway).

 

I’ll tell you the kind of coach who can survive it—one looking at receiving a $4 million payoff if he’s terminated.  And even that might not have been enough to save him.  But it certainly will, because the Wildcat faithful still have a horrendous taste in their mouths after the back-alley $3 million bonus payoff to send Ron Prince packing.  Nobody is ready to handle another $4 million walking out the door for nothing.

 

And yet, nothing is what they’re getting on the playing surface right now.  Oh, they’ve looked better for the past week.  There isn’t cause yet to give up ALL hope.  Unfortunately, “hope” probably rides contingent upon having at least one competent player over the height of 6’7”, and the last one of those with any hint of competency appears to have a foot-and-a-half out the door.

Mizzou Gets A Voice

Just a few quick final thoughts on tonight’s Border War.  It occurs to me that I’ve neglected to include the opinions from the other side in the body of my posts, so I’m going to give the Tigers a chance to speak for a moment.

 

“It’s the best atmosphere in college basketball, no doubt about it.”  --Missouri guard and Kansas City native, Michael Dixon, talking about Allen Field House with the Lawrence Journal-World recently.  Sadly for Dixon, he was not offered a scholarship to join his AAU teammates Travis Releford, Tyrell Reed and Brady Morningstar at Kansas, where he could have experienced that atmosphere more than once a year.

 

“It’s my favorite place to play.  It’s a great atmosphere.  It’s an exciting game.  It’s deafening for 40 minutes, plus warm-ups.”—Missouri guard Kim English, also talking about Allen Field House with the LJW.

 

“You’re not going to get a call going to the basket or anything like that (as the visiting team in Allen Field House).”  --Once again, Missouri guard Michael Dixon, who is taking a page from the PowerMizzou.com and Tigerboard.com message board posters in whining about Kansas getting preferential treatment from the officials.

 

While I personally feel the Tiger fans are misplacing their frustration with the officials when it comes to the lop-sided nature of the Border War series, I don’t blame them for their frustration.  I once read (and I paraphrase, here) that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.  That’s got to be the feeling Mizzou nation is having with the way Mike Anderson approaches the Kansas game. 

 

The “Fastest 40 Minutes” feels more like “Fasting for 40 Years” when applied against the Jayhawks.  It just doesn’t work.  Kansas’ passing is too precise, their guards are too patient and too experienced, and everyone on the team is just too good at finishing the play.

 

On top of that, the wildcard is that the Morris Twins handle the ball (and pass, or that matter) easily as well as most team’s shooting guards.  I know that the philosophy is to speed the other guys up and make them make mistakes, but there really isn’t a turnover-prone guy on the floor at any time.

 

ONE THING that Missouri does have going for them is that it appears that Kansas will be playing the game without standout freshman guard Josh Selby, who is missing his second straight game with a stress reaction in his foot.  Even if Selby wasn’t as good as he is, games with Missouri can be a war of attrition, and you want as many bodies as you can have.  And you certainly prefer to have Selby eating the minutes, over Elijah Johnson—not that there’s anything wrong with Johnson, but there is a drop-off.

 

But I don’t think Selby’s absence is going to make the difference.  In Columbia, I give the Tiger’s a puncher’s chance.  After all, they haven’t lost there yet.

 

BUT Missouri is 0-4 on the road in Big 12 play, and I cannot fathom why their first win would come in the toughest place to play.

 

Kansas 86, Missouri 74

Is Turner Turning the Corner?

I'm going to take a small break from reminding Missouri about how historically inferior their basketball program is, compared to their closest Big 12 neighbor to the west.  There's no need to kick anybody while they're down, in light of the disappointing performance in Stillwater yesterday.  GIVE THE TIGERS A BREAK.  There were very tough circumstances yesterday.  It's never EASY playing in GIA, but I'm sure the level of difficulty is compounded when you're forced to take 2 days to travel (and be forced to spend more than 15 minutes on the campus of Park University), and then land just a few short hours before tip-off.  To add insult to injury, Oklahoma State sent their own personal bus to pick the Tigers up at the airport--decked out tires to roof in Cowboy orange.  Humiliating.

It is interesting, though, that to this point, the Kansas State basketball season has been considered a complete disgrace, and they've got work to do just to get into the Big Dance.  All the while, Missouri is sitting just a half-game ahead of them in the standings, AND they still have to play KU twice and the 'Cats in The Bram.  Missouri finds themselves sort of at a pivotal moment.

No, I thought I would just take a half a moment and talk a little bit about National Signing Day and the way the local recruiting classes turned out, especially Kansas.

I am pleasantly surprised the Gill did as well as he did in mothers' living rooms this year.  Recruiting is his bag, and I'm sure there are few men of better character amongst the ranks of BCS head coaches.  He is a genuinely good dude, and I'm sure any mom or dad would be happy to have him mentor their son.

But let's face it:  Turner was at two strikes and fouling off pitches going into the recruiting season.  For starters, he can't sell to anyone that football is the primary love at his school--it's not.  Never will be.  Passion for football at Kansas is BCS-average at best.  Secondly, he's coming off a 3-9 campaign which saw the Jayhawks lose to a 1-AA program (that's another thing about me--you'll never see me use whatever the new acronyms are for 1-A and 1-AA.  I'm old school like that.  I only recently agreed to occasionally refer to Royals Stadium as "The K").

Finally, Gill doesn't paint a picture of a guy that allows his players to live the "normal college experience."  No need to rehash all the rules and regs.  Suffice it to say that, if a kid decides to come play for Gill, his focus needs to legitimately be 100% on "doing the right things," even though most places are going to let them at least dabble in a little normal coming-of-age stuff.

All of this and Gill still turned out what Rivals is rating as the #34 class in the nation.  Missouri finished up at #46, while Kansas State finished somewhere off the first page (don't expect me to try to dig that low to find it.  Suffice it to say, it ain't good).  In terms of the conference, this means NOTHING anymore, but Kansas finished the highest of the remaining Big 12 North schools, 6th overall in the conference, with Missouri 8th and Kansas State last.

NOW, we have to take the Missouri ranking with a grain of salt.  Nobody thinks Turner is recruiting better than Gary is these days.  Gary just has the luxury of returning enough players that he only had 17 scholarships to give out this year.  Nevertheless, the quality of players KU reeled in appear to be at least on par with what Gary got, only in greater numbers for the Jayhawks.  Might it help bridge the gap just a little?

As for Kansas State--yeah, somebody else is going to have to defend what they took in.  I can understand what's going on in Columbia, but the 'Cats had a full compliment of scholarships to give and a bowl game, and they, frankly, struck out time and time again on the more highly-touted targets on their list.

OK, so KU wasn't any good last year.  They had their moments, but overall, the product has clearly declined for the past three seasons since the Orange Bowl victory in the '07-'08 season.  But there are some nice parts on the team, and Gill appears to be stock-piling an interesting cache of running back talent.  Sims was the leading freshman rusher in the league this year, while 4-Star speedster Brandon Bourbon (out of Missouri--I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin') took a redshirt.  Two more 4-star running backs are in the bag in this (Miller and Pierson, both Missouri guys, even though Pierson went to school in Illinois this year. Again, I'm just sayin'...).

It is disconcerting that Gill expects 15-17 true freshmen to play this year, but what the heck?  Can they possibly do worse than 3-9?  Well, with the new schedule and all....yes, they can.  But it's the experience that builds character, right?

I don't know.  Ask the 37 men who fought Mike Tyson between '85 and '89 what the "experience" was like.

Mizzou Owned KU Back in '08

So Kansas currently holds a commanding 169-94 lead in the Border War, and as we explored yesterday, the recent history has basically been all Jayhawks.  But it’s not fair to say that Kansas has ALWAYS dominated the match-up.  In fact, there was a time in history where the rivalry was pretty darn competitive—as recently as ’08, to be exact. 

 

That would be 1908.  As of February 4 of that year, Missouri actually held the lead in the Border War series, 2-1.  Unfortunately for the Tigers, the Jayhawks ripped off a streak of 31 wins out of the next 33 contests, and Missouri has never regained the lead since (or even came close to doing so).

 

I’m struggling to find a period in time when this “rivalry” got reasonably competitive, and I’m just flat failing to find it.  Kansas has won every decade, except the 1920s (I count a 14-13 Missouri edge from ’20-’29).  Kansas has won the battle in every conference formation the schools have shared, with the closest margin being the 45-31 nod KU held in Big 8 regular season games (or 48-32, if you want to count the Big 8 Tournament).  Kansas also holds the edge in every city in which they’ve ever played, with the exception of Dallas, where the two are just 1-1.  That’s right—KU even leads 64-53 in Columbia.

 

Probably the most painful point for the Mizzou faithful is that they’ve never been able to even produce a COACH that can hold a winning record over Kansas.  Mike Anderson is not off to any kind of a start that leads us to believe that he can right that wrong—he’s just 1-8.  Even the great Norm Stewart only managed to go 33-41 versus the team he most wanted to beat.

 

The bottom line is that this series has been, is, and likely forever shall be a bloodbath.  There really aren’t any two ways about it.

Border War Preparations

Here we are, less than a week from the next installment of the Border War on Big Monday!  By the way, I refuse to refer to the Kansas-Missouri match-up as the “Border Showdown.”  That’s the last time you’ll see me put those two words together in this medium.  We use “showdown” with the K-State rivalry.  Bill Self is fond of calling Kansas State our “rival,” and Mizzou “the enemy.”  An enemy deserves a WAR.  Like the immortal Don Fambrough once said (http://www.lawrence.com/audioclips/1961/), “It’s The Border WAR…not any g**-d***** showdown or hoe-down or any of that sh**!”

Of course, Don is talking about the football rivalry, which is actually competitive.  Depending upon which media guide you go with, the football version of the Border War has stayed within a couple of games in either school’s favor as long as I’ve been a fan.  As for the basketball game—well, perhaps “Border Snore” would be more appropriate.

 Let’s just talk recent history, for now—how about the history of the Big 12 conference?  KU basketball holds a 22-9 advantage over Mizzou since Big 12 play started.  TWENTY-TWO to NINE.  In those 14 seasons, KU has at least split the regular season with Mizzou every year, and SWEPT the Tigers SIX times.  This is NOT a competitive rivalry, friends.  This is a beat down.

 True story, I’m not making this up.  I actually once read on a message board where a Mizzou fan was boasting that they beat KU more often than the rest of the league does.  Fair point—they’ve won about 29% of their games versus KU in the past 14 seasons, while the rest of the league has beaten the Jayhawks a hair under 15% of the time.  Congratulations—you’re hitting .290!  Good enough to keep you on a Major League roster—but unfortunately, this is not baseball.  I wouldn’t be writing home about beating your hated enemy less than 3 times out of 10.

 I’ll give credit where credit is due.  The Tigers have actually managed to beat the ‘Hawks in Columbia a few times since opening “The Paige” in 2004.  It took Kansas State 20 seasons to finally triumph over Kansas in “The Octagon of Boobs.”  So they’ve got that going for them, which is nice (I guess).

 Maybe this will be the year things start to tighten up a bit.  Anderson probably has his best team ever.  If recent history is any indication, though, I wouldn’t bet more than I could afford to lose on it.  But you never know.