I too would HATE to have the number one pick in the draft

Our main-man BM is at it again. In his Thursday column, he throws out this winner:

The Toronto Raptors picked a lousy year to win the NBA draft lottery. There is no player coming out this year who towers above the rest in terms of being ready to start immediately in the NBA or help turn a franchise around in the near future. Adam Morrison, LaMarcus Aldridge and Tyrus Thomas are accomplished college players with lots to prove in the pros.

Now, I'm not an "NBA DRAFT Expert," but I thought it would be interesting (after 3 Bushmills whiskeys) to see if any of the last 5 drafts had really contained no talent in the top 3 picks. So here we go:

2005 - 1. Andrew Bogut 2. Marvin Williams 3. Deron Williams

It's really early to judge these 3, but after 1 year, I know the guys in Milwaukee are really high on Bogut. (Side note: Milwaukee is Algonquin for "the good land." Which is great and all, but the Iroquois could totally whip some Algonquin ass back in the day -- Western NY in the HOUSE!!! But I digress...)

2004 - 1. Dwight Howard 2. Emeka Okafor 3. Ben Gordon

There is some serious talent here. Howard this year: 15.8 ppg, 12.5 rpg. Needless to say... not a bust.

2003 - 1. LeBronBron 2. Darko. 3. Carmelo.

Do I really even need to type anything? There's King James, Mr. underused and Underloved, and the great Syracuse Hope. As Meatloaf likes to say, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

2002 - 1. Yao. 2. Jay Williams. 3. Mike Dunleavy

Okay, so Jay Williams kinda doesn't do shit, and Coach Dunleavy's kid comes off as a whinner, but Yao is unstoppable. Okay, that's a lie. For his first few years in the league, he was threatening to be the new Manute Bol. But now, his communist party chiefs suggetsed he should grow a pair, and start playing like a man. And he did. Count it a win.

2001 - 1. Kwame Brown. 2. Tyson Chandler. 3. Pau Gasol.

So this is the least impressive of the bunch, But Gasol shows some moxy when his foot isn't hurt, and Kwame might have found a home on the west coast this season.

The point is, there is never a BAD time to have a NUMBER ONE pick in the draft. There is always talent to be had, including talent ready to start for an NBA team and make a difference. Which is NOT to say that the Raptors won't blow this pick. I'm just saying, that if they avoid Sam Bowie and take Jordan instead, they'll be hot. Because remember, Jordan was rated below Sam Bowie. God knows why, but he was. So if the Raptors do some god damn due diligence and figure this thing out, they should be fine. Even if BM, noted NBA talent scout, thinks this is a "down year."

PS - Word on the street is that the Raptors are high on some stud from Europe anyways, so maybe BM's thoughts on college players are moot.

On a side note, can Matty Y, our acknowledged horse racing insider, please post something about the Belmont? Please?

Mixed Metaphors with Leo Roth

In today's sports section, there are three articles about last night's Sabres game, which, I assume, can be attributed to the “I'm going to watch the game anyway, so I might as well bang out a mediocre article and get paid for it,” factor.

My “favorite” was by Leo Roth, a man who apparently has never met a situation that doesn't require a bizarre metaphor that probably should have been taken out by the editor. Here are a few of my favorite lines he uses to discuss how awesome the Sabres were. Those of you paying attention may notice that many of them are not technically “complete sentences,” and may speculate that Mr. Batzold and Mr. Roth went to the same journalism school, but try to stay on target.

”Speed and whirling-dervish hustle that draws penalties from an opponent forced to reach out and touch someone.”

Dirty old man!

”Shots fired so hard and accurate the puck could fly through a car wash, not get wet, and knock a beer can off a tree stump.”

A car wash with a beer can stump conveniently located right behind the exit? Is it in West Virginia? Do they even have hockey in West Virginia?

”Thunderous hits normally seen in Orchard Park...

Delivered by the Patriots, Jets, and even occasionally the Dolphins .

... creating turnovers and whipping the crowd into a frothy brew. “

I'm not a doctor, but that doesn't sound healthy. It does sound tasty, though.

”It was a reverse outcome of Game 2 in nearly every way, right down to the hits, the score, and the frantic ending only the Sabres liked this side of the story better.”

In the online version, there is an additional period in that mess. For a fun game to play at home, try putting one in various spots.

”The hurricane then came ashore when... [Kotalik scored]”

If the hurricane came ashore, wouldn't that mean that the Hurricanes were doing some damage and not down 4-1? Were you even trying to make sense?

Now, I ask, is it fair that this man was paid to watch a hockey game that the rest of us would have had to pay (many) hundreds of dollars off Craigslist for?

Tom Batzold does something cool ... almost.

In today's “hilarious news blurbs” section, he quotes Dwight Perry from the Seattle Times: “Coincidence? Twins pitcher Boof Bonser made his long-awaited big-league debut with six impressive innings on Sunday, the same day Minnesota lawmakers finally approved a financing plan for the team's new open-air stadium. Conspiracy theorists are already calling it The House that Boof Built.”

I'll forgive the stale news angle this time because of the awesome tag line “The House that Boof Built.” Hell, I wish I had thought of that. Maybe they interviewed Sky for the article?

The headline for this gem:Boof's roof.

While this does rhyme, it totally ignores the fact that an “open-air stadium,” by definition, does not have a roof. Furthermore, the Twins already have a stadium with a roof, and everyone hates it, which is why they want to build the House of Boof.

It appears as if our education system has failed Mr. Batzold somewhere between first grade and Journalism 101, where they presumably mentioned that it is a bad idea to lie in the fracking headline.

BM loves D-train; Randy Johnson is totally killing BM's fantasy team

Our Boy BM started off Monday's column with this headline:

Yankees should be zeroing in on Willis

Okay, so I know it was really his editor. But still. He followed it up with this...

The undermanned New York Yankees could use a lot of things right now, but no addition would mean more than pitcher Dontrelle Willis.

More than having Matsui and Sheffield back? I mean, there's a lot you can do if your team knocks in 10 runs a night.

The Yankees reportedly scouted Willis in Sunday's 3-0 Florida loss in Tampa Bay. That's no surprise.

True. I mean, teams scout people all the time. Plus the Ynaks tend to have scouts just hanging out with Billy Connors in Tampa all the time.

The penny-pinching Marlins are expected to trade him before the July 31 trade deadline and the Yankees are certain to make a big pitch. They don't have the most prospects to trade but they have the thing the Marlins like most — money.

Tweet. Flag on the play. According to USA Today, Dontrelle makes a whopping $4.35 million this year. I mean, I know the Marlins owners are a bunch of city-hostage-holding, christmas-stealing, multi-billionaires, but would they really shed one of their two remaining draws to only relieve themselves of 4 million of payroll? (On a side note, the Marlins are doing their damnedest to make collective bargining difficult by not spending their revenue-sharing money on real, actual baseball talent. But I digress.)

Willis would be the left-handed starting ace the fading Randy Johnson was supposed to be.

For those who might be wondering, some of Randy Johnson's stats from last year:
226 IP, 211 Ks, 3.79 ERA, 8.42 K/9, 4.49 K/BB, and .697 OPS against. Really a travesty of an acquisition. Or not so much. Now you can argue that he hasn't been up to snuff this year (and he hasn't), but last year he was pretty on point. One might even say he was all he was "supposed to be." I mean, after that whole "punching a camera man" thing blew over. Johnson aside, maybe BM's right, maybe Dontrelle CAN help the Yanks more than anything else right now!

Forget (Dontrelle's) 1-5 record and 5.12 ERA. He's a first-class talent employed by a horrible team.

Wha-what? FORGET what he's done this year? Okay, okay. I'll ignore the W-L record. We know wins are only a stat that Cy Young voters care about. Oh yeah, I mean teams do too, but they at least understand the context.

But let's look at that ERA. 5.12? That's kinda ugly. What are his other numbers? Well, they look like this: 5.12 K/9, 1.64 K/BB (less than half his rate last year), a .750 OPS vs., and a 1.47 WHIP. Overall pretty ugly.

Now, I know that my boy FC will argue that he is more than likely to move more towards his career stats in most categories as the year goes on bla bla bla. And FireCrochester might very well be right. But if the Yanks desperately need pitching help, don't they need someone who has been throwing blazing rocks of un-hittableness, as opposed to someone with talent who is struggling? It seems to me that they have plenty of talented, struggling pitchers already.

BTW, Johnson's stats this year? 1.39 WHIP, 7.04 K/9, 2.45 K/BB, 5.89 ERA, .889 OPS. Not good. But not any worse than Dontrelle. Definitely time for the Yanks to ship whatever is left of their farm, not to mention some Marlin "love money" down to Miami.

BM also throws in this sweet "bold prediction":

A Willis move to the Yankees could be the most significant in-season pitcher move since the June 13, 1984 Chicago Cubs trade sending outfielders Joe Carter and Mel Hall to Cleveland for pitcher Rick Sutcliffe.

How bold was that?

In 20 starts with the Cubs, Sutcliffe went 16-1 with a 2.69 ERA and won the Cy Young Award. The Cubs won the National League East with a 96-65 record.

Oh yeah. That's nothing big. No sweat. D-train can TOTALLY replicate that. Hyperbole much?

It is unlikely that Willis could duplicate Sutcliffe's success with the Cubs in 1984...

You don't say.

...but he'd immediately become the best starting pitcher on the Yankees.

No. Actually that would be Moose and his 2.57 ERA, 6-1 record, 7.97 K/9 and 0.98 WHIP. But thanks for the insight.

Help Us out.

If anyone is reading this and can provide us with copies of the annual statements of Rochester Community Baseball or the Greater Rochester Sports Authority, please post a comment or shoot an email to firebobmatthews@gmail.com.

Alternatively, if you are familiar with Freedom of Information requests in NY, that'd be great too.

Our Mission Has Grown

Guys, it's not just Rochesterians that need to be saved from the foul effects of BM -- he's actually read by Twins fans looking for minor league news. For example, Aaron Gleeman quoted Bob at the end of today's post. Aaron's a good writer, and while his comments make it seem like he's not totally buying into BM's writing, this cannot go on.

Stay focused, men.

GAME TIME!

Boof Fans Are Everywhere

Via FansOnBonds.com

But the scouts say he LOOKS like a ballplayer

A quick "short shot" from yesterday's BM column in the D and C:

"The New York Yankees actually do have some impressive young prospects, including first baseman Eric Duncan and pitcher Philip Hughes. Would any Yankees watchers be surprised if Duncan and Hughes were part of a package offer to the Florida Marlins for outfielder-third baseman Miguel Cabrera and/or pitcher Dontrelle Willis?”

In case you are interested in any actual, real life, Billy Beane-style numbers:

Eric Duncan - In 110 ABs at Triple A Columbus this year, he is ripping it up with a .533 OPS. (Baseball America doesn't list any other stats for him, so I assume it's Mr. Duncan's first season of pro-ball.)
Phillip Hughes - After a dominating 30 innings last year in High A ball, (30 Ks, .178 average against, 1.80 ERA), he has a 4.50 ERA at Double A in only 2 starts, to go with a .286 BAA.

All of these results smack of small sample size, but the point is that maybe the Fish (or any other team) will want to wait a few more months/years for these two to develop before unloading established major league talent for them. Oh yeah, and maybe the media should chill out a little about how good these (or any prospects) are anecdotally, and wait for them to actually produce. Granted our man uses the word "offer," not "traded," but I suspect he really meant the latter.

BREAKING NEWS

This just in... BM opened today's column with this gem of a line:

"In my self-assigned role as Sports Commissioner of Common Sense..."

I'm not even a full-sentence into his column and my gut already hurts.

More information to follow as it becomes available.

...commone sense... haha...

Bob loves Derek

According to Mr. Matthews, ”The 10-year streak of playoff appearances by the New York Yankees appears in jeopardy...”

Presumably because they are leading their division, have the second best ERA and third best OPS in the AL.

”... and it is up to manager Joe Torre and captain Derek Jeter to rise to the occasion after the crushing loss of Hideki Matsui(broken wrist) and short-term loss of Gary Sheffield (sprained wrist; out at least two more weeks).”

The last time I checked, neither one of those guys played in the outfield. Maybe Bernie Williams or Bubba Crosby should rise to the occasion?

”Torre will have to do more managing to manufacture runs with replacement outfielders...”

Joe Torre: “Now that our two best outfielders are out, you guys better score more runs. Also, shave those sideburns.”

Team: “Wait, we could be scoring some more runs. You are such a genius manager, Joe.”

”He'll also need to squeeze maximum performance from a decent, but hardly inspiring pitching staff.”

That is second in the league in ERA.

”It is difficult to understand how so many fellow players could think Jeter is "overrated."”

I am going to indulge myself in some unbiased by fact, Bob Matthews' type speculation, and guess that it has something to do with media types, such as you, falling over themselves to praise everything he does.

”But he's a .315 career hitter...”

Jeter's career OPS+: 121 – above average, but not $20.6 million worth.

”...with Gold Gloves in 2004 and 2005...”

Which should be viewed as definitive proof that the Gold Glove is a joke, and that baseball sportswriters have man crushes on Jeter. Also, this is probably another reason why fellow players feel he is overrated.

”...and is one of the smartest players ever.”

I'm pretty sure Matty Y is smarter than Jeter, but that doesn't make him a good baseball player. He could probably beat Jeter at Baseball Stars for Nintendo, though.

Tom Batzold: NY Yankees :: Brit Hume: Bush Administration

So, I pull out my sports section this morning to see what our heroes have written, and I am greeted above the fold with ”Wang shines for Yankees,” and since I was too lazy to check the box score last, I thought “Well maybe he pitched a perfect game or something.”

No: 8 IP 2 BB 0 SO 0 HR 0 ER

Ok, so that was a fine performance, but probably not the best of the night:

McClung: 7 IP 1 BB 6 SO 0 HR 1 ER

Santana: 7 IP 1 BB 10 SO 1 HR 1 ER

Smoltz: 9 IP 1 BB 7 SO 1 HR 2 ER

Also on the front page is an unsigned wire article about track and field, which I'm pretty sure most people don't care about, and another wire article about a basketball game involving two teams from other states.

The Rhinos fare a little better than last week, with an actual match preview article from Devo, but it was still buried on the third page.

However, the Wings wrap up from yesterday gets the shaft treatment triple play:

1. It is on page 5

2. Even though the game in Buffalo, the D & C was too cheap/lazy to send an actual trained sports journalism professional

3. The freelancer who they bought the article from is terrible, starting off the article with a bad joke about a UHL hockey team from Michigan. WTF?

We need to give Mr. Batzold a position number so I can start giving out “E(#)s” like WD at a baseball game.

Bob has a secret man crush on and is trying to overcompensate due to his love for hates Barry v2.

From today's column:

Sorry for the detour, and yes, I hate basketball as much as everyone else but,

”I have no gripes about Phoenix point guard Steve Nash winning his second straight league MVP award (although I would've had him third, behind LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki) .”

Due to the overwhelming lack of evidence cited, I can only assume that you are jealous of Steve Nash's hair. Yes, the plug transplant would probably be a good idea for you, and sure, the hippies had a lot more fun than you did back in the day, but that is being sort of petty, don't you think? Let it go, Bob, let it go.

Anyway, an intrepid fan of Mr. Matthews writes in to tout Stan Musial for the “all time greatest/ I have to fill three pages a week” team. Don't get me wrong, I think “The Man,” is a pretty badass nickname, and I would be pretty happy if a certain columnist/radio host got me a Wings Stan Musial throwback jersey for my birthday (happy belated Sky!), but when Mr. Matthews says ”But anyone who would prefer Musial over Bonds or Foxx would get no argument from me, he really means “I am too lazy to look up their actual numbers.”

Sure, Bonds has a better OBP, SLG, and OPS+ than either Musial or Foxx, but that would be too obvious. Here is one that was pretty striking:

Name SB CS %

Bonds 506 141 78

Musial 78 31 72

Foxx 87 72 55

This “would get no argument from me” line is starting to sound like Mr. Matthews version of “I haven't seen [X] this season so I have no opinion.”

Dear Time Warner Rochester,

There is this small sporting event in June....

“Hey, you mean Bills minicamp! I think I read a Leo Roth column about that involving bubbling walls of testosterone...”

No! I mean an actual sporting event. The World goddamn Cup, otherwise known as The World's Most Popular Sporting Event will be happening in June, and Disney has taken the unusual step of showing every game live in HD on ESPN, ESPN 2, and ABC.

”Awesome...”

Not so fast; even if I subscribe to digital cable with the additional sports tier, I can't get ESPN2 in HD, where half of the matches will be televised.

If you are out there, please help a brother out. I will call and subscribe tomorrow if you add ESPN2HD.

Thanks,

Brian

Predictions and Evidence

So I wanted to follow-up a little on the posting that “Football Matty” made yesterday, namely the “fearless sports predictions” that our man BM made on Monday.

Here’s what led off the column on Monday:

Barbaro will win thoroughbred horse racing's first Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978 and the streak of 14 straight division titles by the Atlanta Braves will end this year.

Alright, so those are some bold opinions. But he’s the paid professional. I assume that he knows more than me about these things, and especially about horse racing.

Barbaro was underrated before boosting his career record to 6-for-6 with an easy win in Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

Wait wait wait. Was he underrated because he wasn’t the favorite to win the Derby? And what races did he win BEFORE the derby? I mean, I don’t know horse racing from a hole in the ground, but maybe you could say he beat some quality horses in his earlier races. Or did he just manage to win the Finger Lakes Classic against Zippy Chippy and 7 other awful horses?

Just for the record, the morning of the Derby, Mr. Underrated Barbaro was listed at 4-1, the 3^rd best odds of the day. By the time of the race he was listed at 6-1, but everyone else had fallen so far that he was the FAVORITE. How is the favorite underrated again?

The 2006 Braves were overrated from the start of this season and won't win the National League East or earn the league's wild-card playoff berth.

Now, I won’t argue much about whether or not the Braves will win the National League East, but I do wonder how (or why even) they were overrated at the start of the season. Could you back that up? All the prognosticators that I read this spring were predicting death and destruction for the Braves, if for no other reason than Leo Mazzone had bolted for the O’s. In fact, people have been arguing for several years that the Braves were due to lose. If anything, the team has been constantly underrated and doubted for the last few years, not overrated.

Barbaro went off at generous odds of 6-to-1 in the Derby's 20-horse field and had a dream trip to win going away by 6 ½ lengths. Trainer Michael Matz promised his colt would be fresh and fit off an unusual five-week layoff and they delivered. From now on, horse bettors will take him more seriously.

Yeah. More seriously than making him the favorite. They’ll make him the Super Favorite. Maybe they’ll bet that he will both win AND place.

Several fresh speed horses will give it a try that afternoon and a few distance-loving plodders (including Steppenwolfer and Jazil) will take their best shots in the Belmont Stakes on June 10.

AHHH! YES! Actual horses being named. But what’s a plodder? And why does BM discount distance horses. (And yes, “distance” in horse racing seems to be relative.)

There was a lot more to this column, but I think that’s good enough for my first real go around. Basically I just want a little more background on the bold and fearless predictions people are making. Maybe something that tells me more about the people (or horses) involved than I knew before hand. Oh yeah, and it would help if the predictions were a little more “fearless” than “The Winner of the Derby Will Win the Other Two Races” (a prediction made by lots of people every year) and “The 7 games under .500, 3^rd place team won’t make the playoffs.”

Observations on a Young Baseball Season

Based on his most recent article, my hypothesis is that Bob Matthews hasn't actually followed the first month of the baseball season and just based all his crazy claims on what happened in 2005.

The five luckiest teams in the majors reside in the National League West, because it is the only division any of them could win. San Francisco is too old, Los Angeles is too brittle and San Diego can't hit. That leaves two improved teams —– Arizona and Colorado — to contend for the right to be crushed in the postseason.

So how does that make the Giants, Dodgers, and Padres "lucky"?

The best team in baseball is the Chicago White Sox because only they have five above-average starting pitchers (Jose Contreras, Javier Vazquez, Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia and Jon Garland) and another waiting for a chance (Brandon McCarthy).

Bonus points for realizing McCarthy should be in the lineup (although that was true last year, too), but come on... John Garland was only above average last year. Freddy Garcia's still high, Contreras is hurt, and the Sox will be lucky to have any pitcher finish the season with a sub-3.00 ERA. And yes, Bob, the White Sox did in fact win the World Series last year.

The worst team in baseball is Kansas City. It is difficult for a team to be so lousy at so many things.

Again, this was true last year.

The best young slugger in baseball (Albert Pujols now is a veteran) is Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard.

Wait, the best young slugger is the guy was rookie of the year last year? Crazy.

If 2005 AL Most Valuable Player voters had a do-over, I wonder if Boston DH David Ortiz might outpoll Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. Ortiz continues to get clutch hits while A-Rod continues to struggle when the Yankees need a big hit.

Bob finally realizes what's going on in 2006 and he thinks it should influence last year's MVP vote? I'm redacting Rickey Henderson's 1990 MVP because, well, he just doesn't steal many bases these days.

Baseball's best hitter unquestionably is St. Louis first baseman Pujols.

Ok, back to wondering if Bob's still focused on 2005.

He leads the majors in HRs (16) and RBI (38) but he's a long shot to win the National League batting title for a Triple Crown. He ranks 15th in the NL with a .314 batting average. He'll pass a lot of the pretenders ahead of him (for example Brad Ausmus, Omar Vizquel, Austin Kearns and Brian McCann) but probably not all of them.

Brad Ausmus doesn't have a shot at the batting title? Well shit. But if there's a Triple Crown category that Pujols is most likely to win, it's AVG. He's a .332 career hitter who has already won a batting title and finished second last year to Derrek Lee who has a broken wrist. Pujols has never led the league in RBI, and will be challenged to do so with a weak St. Louis lineup. And the homerun race? He's never won that either and getting walked at his current pace won't help.

Oakland DH Frank Thomas (.188, 6 HRs and 15 RBI in 96 at-bats) isn't doing much for his marginal Hall of Fame hopes. He still has some pop but his days as a high average hitter appear over.

Marginal Hall of Fame hopes? You're talking about Frank Thomas, the two-tiem MVP? Frank Thomas, owner of a career 161 OPS+ (14th all-time)? Frank Thomas, who put up a Bondsian .353/.487/.729 line and 38 HRs in a strike-shortened 194? Thomas is no-brainer Hall-of-Famer, you idiot. Oh, and his days as a high-average hitter were over in 2001.

Man that was fun. I'm out.

-The FireCrotchester

Bob hates Barry

This is bordering on too easy, but since we are just getting started, it is good to take a few practice swings.

Check out Mr. Matthews' mission statement in today's paper:

”One of the best things about Bonds being on the verge of his 715th career home run is that it provides us with a timely opportunity to consider the merits of three candidates for "All-Time Greatest Major League Baseball Player"— Bonds, Ruth and Mays.”

Translated: I have a half-page column to fill five days a week and will take any flimsy excuse to jump on the Hate Barry Bonds Bandwagon with a bunch of speculation unbiased by “facts.”

He then tosses Bonds under the bus without considering any of those merits because he was on the juice, unlike Mays whose “biggest selling point” is ”his all-around brilliance and love of the game.”

Ah yes, the old-standby of the Joe Morgan types: back in my day they played for the love of the game unlike the overpaid whiners that are around now, hell they would have played for free, etc. I will ignore his ironclad bastion of rhetoric and move on.

”[Ruth] was headed to a Hall of Fame career on the mound... Ruth...outdueled Walter Johnson...that wasn't a fluke perfomance.”

Career ERA+ Overall Rank

Babe Ruth 122 (80)

Jimmy Key 122 (80)

Walter Johnson 146 (3)

”Ruth is my pick for all-time best baseball player, but anyone who favors Mays would get no argument.”

Unless they talk to someone who actually knows something about baseball.

”Mays was a career .302 hitter and played much of his career in an era favoring pitchers.”

Career OPS+ 156

Barry Bonds: 184

My favorite line of the column: ”[Mays] stole 338 bases and was caught only 103 times at a time when steals were scarce.”

Steals were scarce? Did they move the bases further apart or replace the base paths with the ball crawl from Chuck-E-Cheese? Even so, what the hell does that have to do with anything? By the way, Mr . Bonds had 506 SBs and 141 CSs, for a 78% rate, bettering Mr. Mays' 76% rate.

The end of the section is Mr. Matthews all time team, which is not backed up by any statistics or commentary, and really doesn't have to do with the Bonds/Mays/Ruth argument.

Fire Tom Batzold

Since I am listening to the Rhinos pregame, Tom Batzold is a perfect target to insult. Mr. Batzold is the Sports editor of the D & C and thus is not only responsible for bringing us the work of Bob Matthews and Leo Roth, and filling the left column of the Sports section front page with "hilarious" excerpts from wire stories (usually several days old), but ultimately for deciding what stories make the paper and where they are located.

In today's paper, above the fold, is a story about a Bills defensive tackle, which is OK, since I guess there are some people who care about football in May. On the right is a wire article about Sabres forward Derek Roy/Rue-ah, which is cool except that game 2 isn't until Monday, and that he played here, so we already know how to pronounce his name. The Wings recap is at the bottom.

In the middle, with the largest picture, is another wire story about the Kentucky Derby, an event which:

-isn't actually a sport
-has no local connection
-takes all of two minutes
-can be read about on/in any number of websites and publications

Bourbon is really all it has going for it.

At this point, you may be asking, "Brian, aren't the Rhinos playing tonight? You know, the most popular Rochester sports team based on average attendance, winners of four straight championships at one point, and one of the five best run sports teams in the world. Doesn't a preview of the match belong on the front page?"

My answer: "You're goddamn right.” Instead, there is a three paragraph, six sentence item on the last page of the section. Way to go Mr. Batzold. I would probably hate my customers too if I had your job.

WD says we need goofy handles

I'm not so sure I agree, but we came up with Captain White Hot, and I think Dr. Garbage plate would be pretty good too.

Ideas?

Can we do comments RSS?

/random thoughts fueled by guitar hero failure.

Test Post

Hey, the good news is I tried to look up a Bob Matthews column online and he hadn't written any of the five available on the Sports page. Looks like Josh Bolton's playing for the Rhinos this year.