The Tigers are the new Yankees

The 2008 MLB payrolls were announced a few days ago. Not suprisingly the Yankkes were #1 at almost $210 million. After looking at the Yankees we looked down the list and were shocked (shocked!) to see that jbrater's 0-3 Detroit Tigers were #2.

This is so shocking because we just assumed the Red Sox were just like the Yankees. Sure the Yankees are spending $70 million more than the nearest competitor. Sure the Yankees signed MLB's best and pansiest player to a $300+ million contract. Sure the Yankees are jerks. But the Red Sox are just as bad. Now it seems the Tigers are spending a crapload of money. For shame, jbrater. For shame.

Just for kicks let's check out the payroll. We see that the Yankees are clearly #1. We see the difference between the Yankees at #1 and the Tigers at #2 is the same as the Tigers at #2 and the Rangers at #19. The Mets are a close #3, but where are the Red Sox?

Team------------Payroll
N.Y. Yankees------$209,081,579
Detroit-------------$138,685,197
New York Mets----$138,293,378
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Geez they're a long way down
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Boston------------$133,440,037

Really makes you think, huh?

Too Early to Call the Cardinals Snakebit?

The Cardinals have started the season. Stop right there: no matter what comes next in this post, getting to type that first sentence makes us really, really giddy.

But then, there's also the fact that the mighty Cards seem to be on the brink of completing their collapse that began last season and we hope will lead to the long climb back up next season. But there are some reasons to be optimistic: first, the Birdos did finish spring training with a string of nice performances. Second, Kyle Lohse actually threw pretty well last night. And third, we still play in the NL Central, and it's still the worst division in baseball.

But last night the visiting Colorado Rockies frustrated our dreams to at least have a winning record for a day. Those dreams were even more vivid after St. Louis appeared to be in control of Sunday night's season opener only to have the game rained out. So Monday's do-over came along, and Yadier Molina produced the Cardinals' only run with a solo homerun in the 5th. Troy Glaus--who, for those keeping score at home, is not Scott Rolen--made a critical throwing error to allow the tying run to score in the top of the 8th. Then Randy Flores had the unenviable task of coming in from the bullpen with no one out and the bases juiced in a tie ballgame. Randy then proceeded to strike out the first two batters he faced, then walk in the eventual winning run on some brutally close calls by the home plate ump.

That's the nasty thing about Ball: Flores faced 4 guys, got 3 of them out, but still gave up the winning run. At least it wasn't charged to him.

Let the long summer begin.

Pardon the crude humor

But this was too good to pass up and too immature for BON.

Heh.

Post MLB Draft and More

A few notes and links as we enter the worst part of the offseason...

• We have adopted Mississippi State and Michigan as our new post-Texas NCAA Tourney favorites. MSU has already qualified for the CWS and Michigan began its run today. You know what sucks? Throwing 8 2/3 of no-hit ball, giving up a single with two outs in the 9th and being the losing pitcher. That's what happened today to Michigan pitcher Zach Putnam today in a 1-0 loss.
• We know reading Curt Schilling probably isn't the first thing you do when you get out of bed in the morning, but if you'd ever wanted to know what's going through a pitcher's mind as he tries to throw a no-hitter, you should definitely read this.
• Some Texas related links...Robert Joseph is a moron, Augie thinks Kyle Russell might return, and we're only 83 days from football season.
• Want to know how bad the summer drought is about to become? The TexasSports.com calendar shows exactly a 2 month hiatus between the Men's Track and Field final meet and Volleyball's opener versus Penn State. It's about to get hot and boring.
• Finally, we had difficulty finding a fifth piece of news because the offseason sucks, so please entertain yourself with the random kitten generator.

A Stroll Around The Internet

A few Longhorn related links for your afternoon reading today.

• First, from BON's Morning Coffee, Texas had a down year in '06-'07, Taylor Teagarden is lighting up the minors, J.P. Howell had a great season debut, and Kevin Durant didn't look so good last season.
• College Football News has posted its Texas preview which you can read here. Overall, a pretty fair assesment of Texas's chances in '07.
• Remember Curtis Thigpen? Well, he has now been called up to the Blue Jays to replace injured first baseman Lyle Overbay. Curtis is the third Longhorn from the 2004 team to play in the Majors...that was a good squad.
• Finally, the MLB Draft is less than 24 hours away, beginning at 2 PM EST on Thursday. As such, here's a mock draft having Kyle Russell going #24 to the Rangers.

Where's Mel Gibson Now?

"He's in rehab and Youkilis is at first base!" Apologies if this is old news to you but one of us hadn't seen it yet and found it too funny not to post. Thanks go out to Yankees fan and fellow Texas Ex Evan Remer for pointing us to this hilarious clip. Apparently Kevin Youkilis is not Greek...

A Post with Bullet Points!

• The World Champions managed to score more than 3 runs for the first time in 10 games on Tuesday, beating the Rockies 4-1. They then matched their best win streak in recent memory at 2 in a row by winning 9-2 on Wednesday. If only the Cards could play the Astros and Rockies exclusively until September, they could be right around .500 when it's all said and/or done.
• Michael Vick has dog fights in his house? WHAT?! The jury has been out on Vick for quite some time, but we are now essentially convinced that the dude is just weird, and that's it.
• Apparently, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is doing something noteworthy at some point in the future. This is interesting only because it has taken valuable space on sports pages that should be reserved for sports.
• BoSox manager Terry Francona has publicly asked both David Ortiz and Curt Schilling, and by extension the whole team, to shut up in public on the Barry Bonds homerun/steroids/jerk issue. While we generally agree that Bonds is not the type of guy we're going to tell our kids about and get nostalgic one day, we also applaud Francona for telling his players to act like players, not fans. Especially when one of them is factually incorrect in what he's saying.
• If you're not watching Burnt Orange Nation's daily countdown to Texas football season...start now! It'll quickly become one of the best parts of your day. Or the very best, depending on your quality of life at the moment.

Hey Roger, Right Here Buddy!

See Stan (far left) for our response to Roger Clemens signing with the Yankees for a prorated $28 million. If our math is correct, that brings the Yankees payroll this season to around $225 million, give or take a few million dollars. According to our calculations, the Yankees payroll is more than the GDP of the Falkland Islands and the Marshall Islands combined. We may not love Bill Simmons when he's unfairly bashing Rick Barnes, but he's spot on with Clemens when he says:

We're coming closer and closer to my dream of Clemens' Hall of Fame plaque featuring a cap with a dollar sign on it.

On Polls, Barry Bonds and Jayson Stark

To be completely upfront, we took high school statistics, so we probably understand how to read a poll a bit better than you do. That having been said, in the case of Barry Bonds, there are a few undeniable certainties. Barry is a jerk, Barry has been hitting home runs for a long time, and Barry's head has grown since joining the Giants.

There is also a heavy, unproven suspicion of serious steroid abuse by Bonds over the last decade or so. We believe that Bonds probably knowingly used steroids, but we admit that there is no direct proof at present. Aside from an admission from Bonds, it seems unlikely that direct proof of steroid abuse will be possible.

A recently released ABC News poll concluded that a majority of Americans don't want Barry Bonds to break the home run record. That doesn't surprise us in the least. The poll revealed that 52% of people identifying themselves as "baseball fans" are cheering against Bonds. Moreover, only 37% of baseball fans are cheering for Bonds to succeed.

The poll also examines the role of race on the Barry Bonds issue. According to the poll, 39% of white people and 26% of black people identify themselves as baseball fans.

Which brings us to Jayson Stark. We generally like reading Jayson Stark, but his recent piece attempting to dissect the meaning of this poll was lacking to say the least.

Stark starts off saying that "until now, we haven't spent much time talking about the racial issues that hover over this man and this event. But this poll tells us we need to do more of that, too." He asks "would you have known, from the way this issue has been portrayed by all of us in the media biz, that the percentage of fans who wish this moment wasn't happening would be only 52 percent? Would you have guessed that three fans out of every eight actually want Barry Bonds to break this record?"

On the racial issue, Stark writes that "nearly half of all black fans think Bonds has been given a raw deal. And a quarter of those fans think that raw deal is all about race -- not steroids or anything else."

The career home run record is arguably the biggest record in all of sports. Jayson Stark is questioning the media's portrayal of America being firmly anti-Bonds. Of course, Jayson doesn't mention that Hank Aaron had 77% of Americans cheering for him to break Babe Ruth's record in 1974. Is it not a pretty big story that 40% fewer Americans are cheering for Bonds to break the home run record than Aaron? Are a majority of Americans not openly rooting against this record to be broken whereas 30 years ago only a quarter of Americans opposed it?

Jayson mentions that many fans think Bonds has been treated unfairly, but he fails to mention that overall only 10% attribute this to race. While a quarter of black baseball fans who think Bonds has been treated unfairly believe it is because of race, 62% believe it is either because of the steroids or because Barry is a jerk. Overall, fans who don't believe Bonds took steroids are three times more likely to believe he has been treated unfairly, a figure which makes a lot of sense. If somehow it is proven that Bonds didn't take steroids, we would agree that he has probably been treated unfairly. It is no surprise that those who don't think he took steroids today feel like he is getting a raw deal.

Finally, there is the issue of the media's portrayal. Stark argues that ONLY 52% of America is openly against Bonds, and about 35% WANT Bonds to break the record. Is the media really portraying America v. Bonds inaccurately? Attaching no political subtext, we point to an April 22nd Pew poll relating to President Bush's approval rating. This poll suggests that Bush and Bonds share roughly the same approval ratings.

According to the Pew poll, 35% of Americans approve of the President and 57% of Americans disapprove of his job performance. Should the media focus on the fact that President Bush has a core group of supporters or that his disapproval rating is nearing dangerous levels? Should the media be portraying Americans as "conflicted" in their support for Bush? Would it be accurate to say that only 57% of Americans think Bush isn't doing a great job and almost two-fifths think the Prez is doing a good job? Is suggesting that at present most Americans disapprove of both Bonds and Bush an example of misreading the mood of the nation on this? We wouldn't argue that America is conflicted on either Bonds or Bush (again, no political agenda here, just using similar poll numbers).

Stark concludes that "we have a greater feel now for all of the powerful elements that will collide when that historic baseball takes its fateful ride through the sky. And they won't be colliding quite the way most of us suspected before these poll results knocked on the door to our brains." If that isn't a load of crap, we don't know what is. But, hey, only 94% of Americans believe we landed on the Moon. If we ever do land on the moon for real, knowing that 6% of Americans never believed the lies should give us a better feel for all of the powerful elements that will collide.

Thoughts Upon Successfully Getting Through Customs

• As some of you may have known, this half of "us" has been in Israel for the past week or so. The Other Half (insert married couple joke here) performed ably despite a very busy schedule, as anyone who knows him should of course have expected. It's nice to be home.
• While in the Holy Land, we couldn't help but hear about the tragic and untimely passing of Josh Hancock. In the shadow of the Virginia Tech shootings, it seems a bit crass to make a much bigger deal out of this tragedy over that just because we like the team he pitches for. Still, Josh was a Mississippi boy--we even have a mutual friend--and a member of the Cardinal family, and he will be sorely missed. The Birds' losing streak does not appear to be such a big issue in the wake of his passing.
• We had the opportunity to visit the offices of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Israel's preeminent pro basketball powerhouse. They have a list of the years Maccabi has won the Israeli championship and the Euroleague championship on a big board in there. Since 1950--the first year of the Israeli league's existence--Maccabi has failed to win the championship of Israel only 6 times. When you get past the fact that it's really just a bunch of American guys who couldn't cut it in the NBA, it's pretty amazing.
• The NBA playoffs have been very entertaining so far. For (over-) informed commentary, refer to frequent commenter Benji Orlansky.
• And finally, a quick on-the-field thought on America's Game. Barry Bonds gets closer and closer to Hank Aaron's record each week, and our stomachs get more and more nauseated. Even if the steroids thing wasn't an issue--and it is--this is about the least likable baseball star since Ty Cobb. Athletes may not owe it to us to be nice guys; but we certainly don't owe it to them to cheer for them if they're jerks. Along those lines, the most interesting idea we've read on the topic was offered by Rumors and Rants. You can read the full piece here, but the most important point is that if/when Bonds breaks the HR record, baseball may find a new savior in...Alex Rodriguez. For the time being, however, we'll stick to anti-Bonds voodoo.

On MLB, NBA Playoffs and Texas Longhorns

Now that we're settled back into full off season mode, it's time to take a look at the rest of the sports world.

On the MLB front...

The Red Sox will take a break from beating the Yankees to play a non-AL East opponent for a few games. The Yanks may be 9-14, but if we've learned one thing over the last decade it's that Torre will get the Yankees into the playoffs. It would be nice to think somebody else can win that division, but it ain't happening.

Additionally, last night the Tigers and Orioles took one step closer to being the most vicious rivalry in all of sports. Baltimore and Detroit seem to be becoming natural enemies like Scots and other Scots.

Damned Scots! They ruined Scotland!

On the NBA front...

Big shot Bob is just that, the Wizards were easy targets without Agent Zero, the Raptors aren't relying on TJ enough, D-Wade is a pansy, Kobe clearly isn't taking enough shots, Rockets fans would probably trade it all for VY, apparently German people have no heart, and we've already met our quota for Detroit reference in a post so there's no need for another.

On the Horns front...

Austin Wood was named Big XII pitcher of the week after picking up victories on Tuesday and Sunday. Additionally, since moving to the lead off spot, Jordan Danks has been struggling, to the point where he was moved to the 7th spot on Sunday. Finally, 40 Acre Sports will be beginning to scout out the Texas Longhorn football schedule. Over the next few weeks we hope to bring you detailed analysis and information on the 2007 football season to the point where the season is so boring and predictable for our readers that they may prefer not to watch the games.

Today's Sign That Skip Bayless is a Moron

There are few teams that we like to defend less than
the New York Yankees and few players on the Yankees that we despise more than Alex Rodriguez. Today's quote from Skip, however, requires some defense.

Skip Says: "Jason Giambi has been almost as hot as A-Rod has and Jason Giambi is a left handed batter who's coming up against a right handed pitcher...(Giambi) has, he hit a home run in this game."

Skip was trying to defend the Indians pitching to Mr. April with first base open and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. We're not sure whether the Indians should have pitched around Alex (although his 3 run blast to center suggests it might have been a good idea), but A-Rod is hitting .355 with 10 HRs in 14 games. For comparison's sake, Jason Giambi is hitting .255 with 4 HRs for the year. It was a tough call for the Indians and there's no guarantee that walking A-Rod gets them the win, but right now Giambi's about as close to A-Rod as we are to Giambi.

We hope this will be the first of many posts holding Skip accountable for his opinions, and hopefully A-Rod got it all out of his system before this weekend. Go Sox!

Musings on America's Game and ESPN

• Several things are encouraging about the Longhorns' first game against Texas Tech Friday night. First of all, James Russell and Adrian Alaniz absolutely have to be on top form if Texas expects to make noise in the postseason, because they are thin in the rest of the starting rotation (although it must be said that Joseph Krebs has been showing steady improvement). Second, Bradley Suttle's 3-for-4 night is huge as he was in danger of dropping below the Mendoza line-times-two. OK, so it wouldn't be that big a deal if his batting average fell under .400. But it's really cool that he's still above it. Third, it's good to see someone other than Randy Boone have a solid outing from the 'pen. Finally, assuming they hold on for the win Saturday, Texas continues their trend of getting ahead in each series by taking Game One.
• The spate of rainouts and snow-outs across the Major Leagues is getting frustrating. last night the Cardinals fell victim for the first time, and their game against the Brewers has not been set for rescheduling yet.
• Speaking of the World Champions, today they will play the Milwaukees in New Busch. The funniest thing about the game? Erstwhile Cardinals postseason hero Jeff Suppan (who looks like our friend Brian's dad) comes in to pitch for the enemy with his 0-2 record and 4.15 ERA. The cardinals throw the only guy they went out and got to replace him, Kip Wells: 1-1, 1.38. It's too early in the season for ERAs to really mean much. But it's still fun to see early on how much money other NL Central teams wasted on average pitchers who came up big once for St. Louis (you listening, Cubs?! How's Jason Marquis working out for you?).
• It's been interesting to see the Jackie Robinson tributes so far this year. Some people have complained that it's silly or cheap to have so many players wearing number 42 tomorrow (including 5 entire teams, one of which is the World Champions). We happen to agree with Mike Golic on this issue. Golic said on the radio this week that, while it may seem to us "older" fans that be overdoing it, every kid who turns to his mom or dad to ask why everyone is wearing 42 and learns about Jackie Robinson will make any minor annoyance worth it and then some. He's right.
• The other interesting way in which Jackie-mania has manifested itself is ESPN's constant reporting on the fact that fewer and fewer black American children are interested in baseball. It would be nice to see a a youth sports culture where parents don't all think their kid is going to the pros, where kids don't feel compelled to specialize in a specific sport by age 10, and where kids of all races feel comfortable and excited trying out all different sports. But we're not holding our breath.
• Speaking of ESPN, unless you've been living in a bunker the last two weeks, you've undoubtedly heard that ESPN has a new ombudsman. You can check out her latest column here, and it seems to be so far, so good for Le Anne Schreiber. Anybody working for ESPN that has the gumption to call Skip Bayless "absolutist" is okay by us. Hopefully she can keep up the good work in the future.

Zach Johnson and more

A few hours earlier it seems we prematurely predicted a Tiger Woods victory in the Masters. The Sunday afternoon of the Masters is arguably the most enjoyable/beautiful period of television of the entire year but apparently nobody wanted to win the tournament this year. What is undeniable is that Tiger-proofing Augusta National plus extraordinarily difficult course conditions made the course far tougher this year and nearly led to the highest finishing score in the history of the tournament. Zach Johnson eventually won the whole thing and in the process tied the highest finishing score of one-over par which came in 1956. This year's tournament contrasts sharply from Tiger's 1997 tournament victory in which he shot 18-under par on the very same course.

As to Kevin Durant, the internet rumors stem from a draftexpress.com article which says that "according to multiple sources, both from the NBA and close to the player himself, Kevin Durant will be announcing in a press conference mid next week that he will be putting his name in the draft." It's not that we dispute that KD will be going pro, but the fact that no "major" news organizations have picked up on this creates doubt as the authenticity of the report...right now. If/when Kevin goes pro, Longhorn nation should wish him nothing but the best.

Finally, as the sports seasons go round and round, readers will notice that 40 Acres Sports revolves around one college team, one NFL team (the Saints) and two Major League teams (Red Sox and Cardinals) and until Kevin Durant declares pro, we'll hold out on die-hard support for an NBA team.

As far as the Red Sox go, they've started out somewhat slowly although Dice-K's spectacular debut was...spectacular. At 2-3 right now, the biggest concern may be the depth of the starting pitching. Question marks still remain for the bottom of the line-up and relief pitching but the season still looks to be in great shape. Tonight, the Red Sox try to salvage a game from the Rangers with Curt Schilling on the mound. Already Papi's gone yard twice.

You can read all about it tomorrow on Curt's blog. That's it for now, we'll be back later with a recap of the weekend that was in Longhorn baseball.