A Sad Realization And Week 1 Of The MFL

While I’ve been back and forth and back on getting on iPhone, a couple of instances may have caused me to eventually (and ultimately) go forth again. By now everyone knows that Blackberry App World can be pretty lacking in the whole “app” department. When Krissy and a bunch of other people were downloading and playing the oh-so-addicting (I steal Krissy’s phone every night just to play) “Song Pop,” I knew very well no such game would exist for Blackberry platforms, but I did a quick App World search anyway. The search yielded useless garbage like an app called “HypePopMag,” a Blackberry theme for $4.99 (5 bucks?!? I can rent a movie off iTunes for that much and have a dollar left over!) called “KingPop,” and something called “The WhaleSong Project”...

…the f*** is that?

Suffice to say, there was no “Song Pop,” and of course my old iPod Touch doesn’t have the operating system to handle the intricacies of a mobile name that tune game either…no biggie…but when the same was true for this year’s Yahoo fantasy football app, this was too much to bear. For most things that my ol’ Blackberry and iPod didn’t have available to them, I could live without (or find some kind of workaround at least). I’d even boasted about my perceived ability to do without technology to a certain extent in the past, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Sadly I suppose, for me that line is fantasy football.

Speaking of fantasy football (how’s that for a smooth transition?), week 1 went pretty well for “Jr.’s College Fund.” Despite a weak game from Antonio Gates and Adrian Peterson deciding to apparently not even let Toby Gerhart have 1 week to himself as Minnesota’s featured back, I was able to cruise to the 2nd highest point total of the week and a 1-0 record. While “Triple M” (Marshall, Maclin, and Murray) all came through, I think I have to thank an out-of-the-blue 18 points from Redskins’ kicker Billy Cundiff as well. It also helps to have a quarterback that can throw 3 picks and still get you 20 points…I have a feeling that as long as he stays healthy, I’m going to like having this Matthew Stafford guy captaining my fantasy ship this year.

Kicker? I just met her.

Week 2 has me pitted against the ol’ wifey, so I’m sure there will be a lot of awkward silences and weird tension (for 1 of us at least) this weekend in our apartment. Coincidentally, I’m 3-0 all-time in the 2+ years of this fantasy league against Krissy, but I’m not liking a bunch of my matchups (Stafford vs. the 49ers, Maclin vs. the Ravens, etc.). Yahoo seems to agree, as the line is “SPERM DEPOSIT” by 6 as of today. I might agree too, as I would be inclined to give the 6 and take Krissy’s team. We’ll see what happens though.

Robert Griffin III's Debut Gives Reason For Hope

Hope for the best, and expect the worst. In a Friday morning text, that’s what I told my friend Mac was the longtime Redskins’ fan’s deep-seeded feelings about the franchise. This applies to everything from short term to long term to everything in between. Back when Washington made the trade to move up in the draft and take RG3, I wrote that it was a move the Skins had to make, and yet it still wouldn’t have surprised me if it didn’t work out (thus setting the franchise back another 5 years or so in their seemingly never-ending search for a quarterback). As for Griffin’s 1st year, I fully expected (and still do…kind of) him to put up good numbers on an overall bad team before getting injured at some point because he would be constantly running for his life behind a makeshift offensive line.

In the very very short term, my feelings regarding Washington’s week 1 trip to New Orleans were similar. The Saints have maybe the most potent offense in the entire league and one of the most deafening home crowds to boot. So when the suspensions of 2 Saints players for their involvement in the alleged bounty scandal were lifted, I went from about an 8 to a 12 on the impending doom scale…that is, until a certain rookie QB mentioned above came under center.

I don’t really want to get into a whole local sports talk radio in-depth breakdown of yesterday’s game here, and the Redskins’ 40-32 road win wasn’t all about Griffin. There was the defense that forced a normally hyper-efficient Drew Brees into completing less than 50% of his passes and 5 Saints 3-and-outs. There were virtual unknowns like Aldrick Robinson and Alfred Morris having big games on offense too.

RG3's week 1 performance may have changed Redskins' fans' expectations.

But then again this game was all about Griffin. In my 20+ years as a Skins’ fan, I have seen every kind of quarterback in burgandy and gold. I’ve seen the 1st round bust (Heath Shuler), the flash in the pan (Brad Johnson), the career journeyman (Tony Banks and Rex Grossman), the aging superstar (Donovan McNabb), the grizzled vet (Jeff Hostetler and Todd Collins), and the young stud with some promise that was ruined by coaching, team management, and constant flux (Patrick Ramsey and Jason Campbell). It’s still extremely early, but I’ve never seen Griffin’s “type” (a superstar franchise player) come through the revolving door of Washington signal-callers.

I want to be careful here because of that whole hope for the best, expect the worst thing, but it’s possible we have never seen the blend of Griffin’s talents in a player before. As important as that, there’s his demeanor though…he seems to exude a quiet confidence, a swagger, an I got this mentality when things look like they're about to get tough. Going into the year, there were questions of whether Washington surrounded Griffin with enough talent. Well, is it possible (still trying to desperately temper my enthusiasm) that Griffin is good enough to make everyone around him that much better? So much so that he could make Morris, Robinson, and Pierre Garcon look like Pro Bowlers for much of yesterday's game?

It’s still just 1 game. It’s not exactly a great sample size. It certainly can’t erase 20 years of mediocrity. But that whole expect the worst thing? Maybe there’s some reason for hope after all.

Kevin Ogletree, Weekend Notes, And Week 5 Of The Beltway Baseball Breakdown

1st off, to those of you that own Kevin Ogletree (owned in 28% of all Yahoo fantasy leagues), mazel tov…I’m sure the percentage of people that actually started him last night is much smaller, but for at least a few days this season the Cowboys’ number 3 receiver is the top rated player in all of fantasy football. What I’m sure will also turn out to be true is that the number of people that own and start Ogletree will dramatically go up in week 2. The fact that he had 8 catches for well over 100 yards and 2 TDs was crazy enough…that he caught the game-clinching reception on 3rd down to move the chains and put the Giants out of their misery was almost too much to bear. Normally reserved in any game not involving the Redskins, I couldn’t help myself. “F*** this guy!” I blurted out as my brain processed the play. Kevin “F.” Ogletree…for 1 game at least, he had earned that new middle initial.

Don't forget the "F."

As for the game itself, overall it seemed uneven (much like you would expect the 1st game of the year to be). Up until Dallas’ 1st score with about a minute left in the 2nd quarter, there was hardly any offense to speak of. That was probably partially due to good D, but more due to sloppy offense (the Cowboys wound up with 13 penalties for the game, and Victor Cruz had at least 3 drops by my count). To me, the difference in the game was that other than their 2 2nd half TDs New York’s offense couldn’t sustain any drives throughout the night, and the Giants’ defense just seemed gassed by game’s end. It was vintage New York Giants though, as this year they again look like a team good enough to go about 9-7, barely make the playoffs, and then suddenly turn it on when they need to.

Somewhat lost in the return of the NFL last night was baseball, where the Nationals continue to thump NL Central teams at home. Remember a few weeks ago when I said that Washington was finally getting all their hitters healthy to go along with their filthy pitching staff? Well, they became something like the 3rd team in a million years to have back-to-back 6 homer games last night, 2 courtesy of Bryce Harper (who has gone from ice cold to scorchingly hot all of the sudden). Oh, and Gio Gonzalez struck out 9 in 7 scoreless innings to quietly pick up his 18th win of the year…if only Washington could play the Cubs every night, right? And there’s also that whole Strasburg only has 2 starts left before they shut him down for the year thing, but let’s ride the wave while it’s here, right?

You sure you have to leave so soon, Cubbies?

Not much to report on the O’s really…they took 2 of 3 from Toronto, but lost last night while the Yankees won to drop them a game out of 1st place. They are still tied for the Wild Card, and they have a 4 game series with New York at Camden Yards this weekend, so they have a chance to do some real damage (or conversely fall from the pack) within the next few days. With respect to that, I’ll let the dust settle before I make any meaningful comments on them.

And in “PTI” style, a bittersweet happy trails to Andy Roddick after he bowed out of the US Open yesterday, of which he said would be his last tournament. A perennial top 10 player and the owner of 1 major championship, Roddick’s career has to be considered a success (albeit obviously not on the level of Federer’s or Nadal’s). And he also did well for himself in the marrying department, so no one needs to weep for him, but he will be missed. An even more bittersweet happy trails to ex-Ravens owner Art Modell, who died this morning. Modell was a good owner and a very nice man by all accounts…I’m sure I have some Ravens’ fans out there who were touched by the news of his passing.

Not Warming Up To The Idea

This might come off a little bit “Seinfeld-ian,” but have you ever wondered how in the blue hell 2 opposing tennis players are able to warm up together prior to a match? I was watching parts of the beginning of the Marion Bartoli-Maria Sharapova match yesterday at the gym, and I couldn’t help but wonder...I know tennis is traditionally known as the “gentleman’s game,” but it’s always struck me as truly bizarre. Maybe it really is that gentlemanly, or maybe the culture of individual sports are just different than team sports in that they force that kind of interaction occasionally.

Yep...definitely different.

Can you imagine 2 opposing basketball teams running layup lines at the same basket or 2 baseball teams taking batting practice at the same time though? Hell, if 2 football teams even stretch too close to one another during warm-ups, f***ing Armageddon is likely to break out at midfield. And what is each player thinking as they hit back and forth to one another? Players don’t have to hate each other…in fact, I’m sure most of them respect one another at the very least. Some probably even like one another or, in the case of sibling matchups, love each other. But at the same time, they are competitors…their mindset going into a match no matter what has to be that they want to destroy the person on the other side of the net.

"Hey buddy, f*** you!"

So, as you’re getting loose, do you wimpily try to block every shot back so as not to give away anything in terms of strategy? Do you try to take the other guy’s head off with every f***ing stroke as an act of intimidation? Do you just pretend the other person is some autonomous hitting partner and go ahead practicing shots you would normally take during the game? To anyone that’s ever played tennis, this probably isn’t an issue at all, and I’m making something out of nothing. To someone who has only played if you consider “playing” trying to not clumsily hit the ball into the net or beyond the court fences, then, yes, it’s insane…because of which, maybe we should add tennis players to that “different breed” I talked about before.

Yea, I don't really get it either.

Run And Tell That

Runners have always been a strange breed to me. Back in high school, I was buddies with a guy named Joey Norcio. Joe was an all-around good guy: smart (in the IB program), funny (had a very sarcastic, subversive sense of humor), and a lights-out shooter on the basketball court…except our high school freshman team had a thousand guards, which unfortunately never allowed him to get consistent playing time. Joey’s 1 strike against him: he ran cross country.

I don’t want to get into a whole running is not a sport thing. I have respect for runners as athletes, and I actually think running (and track and field in general) is underrated as a spectator sport as well. I fully endorse it as part of any athlete’s training program, but I used to despise running during soccer or basketball practice, and I equally hated it at the gym as an adult.

Ok, now that's just uncalled for.

At some point, I actually started to enjoy running though…your lungs filling up with air, the burning in your legs, the little rush of endorphins or whatever that you would get when you were finished…now that I have confined myself to the stationary bike for cardio training to rest my constantly ailing knees, ankles, and achilles, I actually miss the treadmill.

But even so, I always felt it takes an odd person to run just for the sake of running. To hear runners talk about things like heart rate zones, cadence, and how many miles they ran the other night is enough to make me want to induce my own vomiting. And you could make a perfectly legitimate argument that anyone that is into weightlifting or bodybuilding in a similarly serious way is just as nutty. In truth, tracking your diet down to every individual calorie or gram of protein or mapping out your entire training regimen weeks in advance is just as geeky as what any runner does…and yet there’s something about runners – maybe it’s the kind of holier than thou, running is gospel attitude a lot of them have – that makes them more off-putting...

...or maybe it has to do with the fact that they look like the hipster doofuses of the sports world.

Either way, I maintain that there’s got to be something in a runner’s genetic makeup that makes them different from non-runners. As a means to improve yourself as an athlete overall, I think running is great, but to be someone’s thing in and of itself is just weird to me. It was a point that wasn’t lost on Joey Norcio, as we would often tell him that there was just something “off” about runners…to which he would only smile and acceptingly nod. What could he do? The rest of us weren’t runners. He knew we couldn’t possibly understand.

Week 4 (I Guess) Beltway Baseball Breakdown

So, remember that time that I decided to try to do a weekly beltway baseball breakdown? Yea, well maybe it should’ve been monthly or tri-weekly or something along those lines. Anyway, 3 weeks passed, some stuff happened, some games were played, and we’re pretty much at the same place we were on August 8th…well, almost. Let’s get to it.

How ‘bout them O’s, hun? Back on August 8th, Baltimore was 59-51 amidst completing a 3 game sweep of Seattle. They had just come off their 11th straight win in 1-run games, which had them 4.5 games back of New York for the division lead and right in the thick of the Wild Card race. This was all despite an unfathomable -54 run differential. Fast-forward 3 weeks later, and that streak is up to 13 in a row, they are only 3.5 back of the suddenly vulnerable looking Yankees, and they would be in the do-or-die Wild Card game if the regular season ended today. At 71-57, they’ve actually improved on their still abysmal run differential (-39), and now they are doing it with guys I’ve never heard of like Lew Ford and Nate McLouth to boot. They clearly have befuddled all the so-called baseball experts, and it’s gotten to the point where they don’t even know what to write about the Orioles anymore. In the little blurb about the O’s in ESPN’s latest power rankings, the Worldwide Leader mentioned a totally irrelevant Baltimore trade involving Steve Trachsel that happened 5 years ago…what?

My beloved Nats, on the other hand, have been scuffling a little as of late, losing 5 in a row and 6 of their last 10. Those same power rankings mentioned before still have them number 1 in the whole league, and they own a 4 game margin over Atlanta in the NL East, but they don’t look quite as invincible as they did a week or 2 ago when they were nearing a double digit win streak. Their bats all cooled off at once, and last night Strasburg actually appeared human, getting shelled for 7 runs in only 5 innings in a 9-0 loss to Miami. It could just be a bad 5 games in what has been a very good season for Washington up to this point, but you have to wonder if this whole “Stras-gate” thing is going to eventually take its toll on the clubhouse (if it hasn’t already). The idea that you are going to lose your best player at some point prior to the postseason has got to be a serious mind-f***. Let’s hope GM Mike Rizzo and company know what they’re doing.

Honesty...Don't Believe The Hype

Everybody Loves Raymond fans might recognize the title of this post, and while I’m sure I will harp to my future kids that honesty is always the best policy, good ol’ Ray Barone may have been on to something there. For example, I once read that if you were to ever get pulled over by a cop for speeding that fessing up to your transgression was the best way to go. I tried this approach the last time I got stopped, and it got me nowhere fast. Was there a reason you were going so fast, sir? “No, not really, sir…I will try to slow down next time.” Now, 1 occurrence is a pretty small sample size. The cop may have been a complete d*** in general, or he needed to meet his quota for the month, or there could have been a dozen other reasons why I wouldn’t have escaped without a ticket with that particular guy at that exact moment, but no matter how you slice it honesty didn’t pay off for me in that instance. If it happened again, I would have just played dumb. Do you know how fast you were going, sir? “55, why is anything wrong?” The speed limit’s 40 miles per hour here, sir. “Oh, well I thought it was 55. Look, that sign up ahead says 55 mph. I didn’t realize that it was only 40 back there. Oh, whoa is me…” You get the idea.

"Sorry, officer...I didn't know I couldn't do that."

Put in another situation of that kind this past weekend, I decided to go the other way. Playing basketball with Krissy, Mac, and others at Notre Dame of Maryland in Towson, we were stopped by a middle aged gentleman who inquired about our student status (we know people who go there, which is why we know about the gym in the 1st place, but none of the people playing at the time had any affiliation with the school). The guy was perfectly nice, well dressed, handsome, etc…he had the look of a guy who had just finished playing golf and was about to take the wife out on the boat that evening. He may very well have been the assistant band director for all I know, but he had a college president/dean/administrator look about him. Do you go to school here? “Yes, sir.” Which school? “Pharmacy.” Ahhh yes, might I ask you who the dean of the school of pharmacy is? “I’m sorry, I can’t think of the name. Sorry, I am a 1st year student. It’s right on the tip of my tongue though.” That’s ok. Can I see your student ID? “Well, I don’t have it on me actually. I left it in my car. Do you want me to run and get it real quick?” No, that’s ok as long as you’re telling me the truth. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? “No, sir. Is there a team practice we need to leave the court for or anything?” [Giving myself bonus points for this response; my body language and response must have been convincing enough, but my own question might have redirected the focus of the interrogation just long enough to throw Dr. Dean Fancypants off the scent…] No, nothing scheduled for a few more hours. We just sometimes have people sneak into the building to use the gym. It’s for students, faculty, and staff members only, and we just need to make sure. “Oh, ok. I completely understand, sir.” Just make sure you guys have your IDs next time. Have fun. “Thank you, sir. Have a good one.”

Jiminy Cricket can go b*** himself.

I don’t consider myself a particularly good liar, but that seemed to get the job done. I found myself on the other side of this conversation quite a bit back at UMBC, where part of my job was the de facto head of security for the school gym. Early on, I probably left the occasional "sneaky-sneaker" to his own devices if he gave me the ol’ I forgot my ID line, but as time went on that changed. Eventually, trespassers had gotten so brazen that I wouldn’t have been clearly as nice as "Old Man ND" was to me. You go to school here? Yea? No ID? Hit the bricks! In fact, what started out as guilt eventually turned to glee whenever I got the chance to kick someone out of the gym. But in this instance for us, it all worked out. A little halfcourt basketball game never hurt anybody…which shows that in certain situations a smidge of dishonesty isn’t so bad after all.