I Will Still Love You Forever, Bill Belichick

Dear Bill,

I know this must be a very hard time for you right now. For the first time in your entire life, you have done something that could be considered, by some people, to not be completely 100% correct. I am not one of those people; I agreed with your call to go for it on fourth and two. Unfortunately others on this Earth may not agree, and that fact is one neither of us can change. There are a few things I would like to say to you right now that I hope will help you deal with this reality.

First of all, welcome, I suppose. Welcome to the fallible world of humanity. The emotion you are experiencing right now is called "regret," which is something we humans feel after we err, fail, or come up short. You feel it deep in your abdomen, and it dissipates gradually over the course of weeks. As you are surely recognizing, it isn't pleasant. I wish for your sake you could have lived your whole blessed, gilded, remarkable life without feeling this, but sadly that is not the case. I'm sorry.

The one condolence I can give you is to tell you that you are not alone. Many other people have made mistakes over the course of history, myself included. I'll share a few of mine with you to show you that I also know shame:

-Once bought Reduced Fat Wheat Thins instead of regular Wheat Thins

-Angered third grade teacher by refusing a Power Rangers coloring book as a prize for winning third place in a St. Patrick's Day leprechaun-coloring contest

-Forgot exact number of rings that Saturn has in front of 6 or 7 people

As you can see, far more egregious crimes have been committed than yours in Indianapolis tonight. While the sting of tonight's loss will remain with you for a long time, please know that you will forever have my unbending trust and support. 

Everything is going to be ok, Bill. I promise.

Sincerely, 

Alex Gaynor

PS now we can all go back to agreeing that Peyton Manning is a dildo instead of reluctantly admitting that he is amazing

SHEED.

The Sheed thing is working. Pretty much to perfection, as far as I'm concerned. Here's a bunch of stats that demonstrate what I'm saying here:

No stats.

It's obviously working, cause now Sheed can just stand around and bomb up threes. Wheeeee! Seriously, this is a fun thing to do. And it's especially working because he's on a great team again. Last time he was on a great team, the Pistons, they needed his offense all over the court and they needed him to guard starting 4's every game. Now we just need him to stand around and bomb up threes, and then body up for 10 minutes on the opposing team's backup center in the event that the guy can actually shoot. 

Geniuses.

Here are a few sports geniuses:

Peyton Manning. Tom Brady is the best football player, and Peyton Manning is a genius. 

Gregg Popovich and Tim Duncan. Co-geniuses. Others gamble, they operate. They are also two badass motherfuckers disguised as dorks. 

Terry Francona. Derives his genius from the enormous wads of gum he chews. His genius is not his managerial style, but simply the decision he makes nightly to chew 2-3 pounds of gum at a time. 

Here are a few people who you might think are sports geniuses, but they are not:

Bill Belichick. He is a mad scientist, not a genius. A genius tolerates humanity.

Larry Bird: Savant. Possesses maybe the keenest basketball mind of all time, but shares more intellectually with Lennie from Of Mice And Men than Stephen Hawking.

Troy Aikman: Nobody actually thinks Troy Aikman is a genius, except for Troy Aikman. Troy, if you're reading, you are a clod, not a genius. Thank you for your readership.

Is Ricky Rubio A Little Bitch? Unclear

Spanish basketball phenom Ricky Rubio and his handlers have declared that he won't play in the NBA until at least 2011. When he does decide to join the league, it's unknown if he'll choose to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves, who drafted him, or if he'll try to steer his way into a less Minnesota-centric situation, such as any team that is not in Minnesota. 

On the surface, this is definitely a little bitch move. He entered the draft, a team drafted him, and now he's not showing up and playing ball for them. Appropriate responses include "what the hell" and "that guy is being a little bitch." But digging deeper, is he in fact being a little bitch, or is he not actually being a little bitch and doing something else instead? As a devout enthusiast of pure point guard play, which is what Rubio stands for in my eyes, allow me to defend the man. Or, kid. He's 18. 

Everyone has a right to determine their own path through life, unless they have signed legally binding documents dictating that they have to do things for other people who are more powerful than them, correct? Something like that? Well, Rubio hasn't signed anything. There is no contract. While it is certainly weak for him not to go to work for the team that gave him a chance in the NBA, it makes sense on his end. By all accounts Minnesota is a bad, cold place to be if you are not a deer or wolf, and he's coming from Spain so that would be an especially rough transition. Also, it's a small market and he wouldn't be able to capitalize on endorsements there the way he would if he played in NYC or LA or somesuch large market. So, sure. Fine. Don't worry about it, Ricky. The fine people of Minnesota will forgive you when they are done waiting for their cars to warm up as they leave the parking lot of the Mall of America. 

It makes sense for him basketball-wise, too. The Wolves have a lot of young, promising, but overall unproven talent, and he would just be more of that on the pile. I'm sure he'd play fine, but it wouldn't be an ideal situation for him. He would be bored and nobody would care. The other realistic option is the Knicks, which makes complete and total sense. He's the perfect (PERFECT) player for coach Mike D'Antoni's system ("go as fast as you can and put the ball in the basket while looking cool"), and he would play right in to the Lebron-to-NYC thing. They'd fit together lock and key: global icon in the making, charging down the court, dunking repeatedly off of sweet no-look passes from the slick European point guard with matinee-idol looks and a great name. Damn. Imagine the two of them filming ads together, awkwardly clowning around. They could sell gravel to children. 

Tedy Bruschi Retires

Tedy Bruschi called it quits on Sunday. He didn't seem too bent out of shape about it. Carrying the weight of the moment was Bill Belichick, whose voice actually cracked up a little during his press conference. I've never seen him unable to hide emotion before, even for the tiniest moment. Even after Super Bowl wins he usually just sounds like someone who won their money back on a five dollar scratch ticket. Yet there he was, getting emotional, struggling to collect himself, letting it slip that Bruschi was his favorite player. Kinda says something about Bruschi. 

The man came back from a stroke and anchored the defense of a team that had a perfect season. THE MAN CAME BACK FROM A STROKE. Absolutely incredible. One of a kind. It was a pleasure to watch him play the game. 

People Are Happy For Mike Vick

Mike Vick made his comeback last night against the Jaguars last night. He looked slow, but he completed all of his passes and didn't royally fuck up like Donovan McNabb did. It's worth noting that the crowd received him enthusiastically, their greeting being one of the many Vick-related uncertainties heading into the game.

I sense that people are generally OK with Vick now and are prepared to get behind him if he plays well. America loves dogs, but America also loves touchdowns. Plus, Vick got a huge PR boost when PETA took a public stance against him.

Here's the thing about PETA, their agenda aside: PETA is the girl in class that likes the sound of her own voice so much that she has her hand up for every question, regardless of whether or not she has something valuable to say. She does not seem to listen or think anything through. She simply spouts self-important rhetoric, delighted with herself for enlightening her peers. No one is interested in her opinion by the second week of class. The professor calls on her only because he knows that if he doesn't, she will complain to her parents, who will contact the school and complain about the unfair treatment of their daughter. That is what PETA would be if an animal rights activists organization could be a person. 

Being so deeply unlikeable themselves, PETA might have actually helped Vick's return to good graces by condemning him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so to speak. Either way, I'm not too surprised to see the overall positive reaction to Vick playing again. I thought it would be a little more mixed, but no, it's pretty overwhelmingly positive. Chalk one up for the "America is about forgiveness" crowd. 

John Smoltz Suddenly Incredible Again

John Smoltz was buck nasty in his first start for the Cardinals. Five scoreless innings, seven straight strikeouts, nine in all. Seven straight strikeouts! So money. I don't know if he managed seven straight strikes, period, when he was with the Red Sox. 

I've always liked John Smoltz. I grew up watching the Braves more than any other team because of TBS, and Smoltz stood out to me. He seemed like someone you could trust, and as a young person I needed that. He's a standard bearer of the goatee and could without question teach a high school math class. He has looked exactly the same for 14 years and only bothers with one facial expression ("plain"). 

So the question is, why was he so dreadful with the Red Sox and so instantly fantastic with the Cardinals? Well, the real question is who didn't see that coming, because you just KNEW it was going to happen. But let's explore some possible answers to that first one.

A) The National League is terrible. This is a pretty universally accepted idea. The talent pool seems to be a little weaker, largely due to the absence of the Yankees and Red Sox. Those teams play Really Major League Baseball and the other teams mainly just stick to MLB. So without cash monsters like those, the NL sort of comes out looking like the pansy league. That's ok. Pansies are beautiful. 

B) Smoltz is just now breaking through his rust. This makes sense. The guy didn't pitch much at all last year and didn't start until the middle of the summer this year. He's like 40. It wasn't surprising to see him struggle at first. I thought the Red Sox were a little hasty in giving him the boot, but his last couple of starts really were horror shows. Hard to blame them for axing him when W's are so crucial. But everyone thought he'd start to roll at some point and maybe that point is right now. If so, tough break for Boston. 

C) The Russians.

Tough call. Comments about the pansy NL notwithstanding, the Cardinals are looking pretty good in October right now. They have the two hottest hitters in baseball (not including Joe Mauer) and an effective Smoltz really rounds their staff out. Tough matchup, even for the Yankees.