The Last Movie Star?

There are many quantitative ways to measure the…hmmm, what’s the right word... brightness of a particular movie star. You can count Oscar nominations and box office receipts, magazine covers and Barbara Walters interviews.

But mostly it’s a feel thing. It’s this complex alchemy of critical acclaim, glamour, box office success – and perhaps most importantly, indelible screen moments. John Wayne framed in the door in The Searchers. Cary Grant chased by a plane in North by Northwest. Jack Nicholson poking his face through a crack in the door. Tom Hanks on a park bench.

Then there is George Clooney. Clooney seems to have inherited the mantle of the supernova movie star. One way you can tell he’s being groomed to replace Jack Nicholson as the Zeus of the Hollywood Olympus is the deference he is paid at awards events. He’s the guy that the emcee and the other actors give a shout out to from the stage, that the camera constantly seeks out. Last night on the Oscar red carpet, Regis Philbin gushed that it used to be "everyone in this town wanted to be Cary Grant, and now they want to be George Clooney”.

And this week's Time magazine has a cover story titled "George Clooney: The Last Movie Star" in which the author says "this guy...really is a movie star. Maybe the only one we have now."

The only one we have. Wow. There's one teensy-weensy problem, though, that nobody seems to have noticed. One tiny little thing missing from the George Clooney is the World's Biggest Movie Star storyline...nobody watches his movies.

O Audience, Where Art Thou?
Since 1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn, George Clooney has been in 20 movies. Five of them have grossed more than $100m at the box office:

Ocean’s Eleven: $183m
The Perfect Storm: $182m
Ocean’s Twelve: $125m
Ocean’s Thirteen: $117m
Batman & Robin: $107m

But only The Perfect Storm, released during the Clinton Administration, can truly be called “a George Clooney movie” in the way that, say, Forrest Gump is “a Tom Hanks movie” and virtually every Tom Cruise movie is, in fact, “a Tom Cruise movie”.

Batman & Robin was the pathetic remnant of a once-proud franchise – plus top billing went to a true box office king, Arnold Schwarzenegger. O11 was a genuinely big hit (though it barely edged out Jurassic Park III at the box office) – but Ocean had an ensemble cast that featured a proven movie-carrying superstar, Julia Roberts, not to mention Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. O12 and O13 were lame sequels that fans of the first movie (including this one) were duped into seeing.

After those five “hits”, things get really bad.

The next top-grossing film in the Clooney filmography is Three Kings, which in 1999 did $60m at the box office. How good – or bad – is $60m? It was good enough for 39th place in 1999, just behind She’s All That and ahead of Bicentennial Man.

Mind you, this is one of George’s big hits. His next biggest hit, Syriana,took in a $51m, good enough for 56th place between Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Diary of a Mad Black Woman.
And so on. The nadir was 2006’s The Good German. Despite the presence of his Ocean director Steven Soderbergh, as well as Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Spiderman Tobey Maguire, it did a grand total of $1.3m at the box office. How bad is that? I don’t know because the site I’m getting my data from, Box Office Mojo, only tracks 150 movies per year, and German didn’t come close to cracking the top 150. But let's put it this way: Gigli did six times better.

Feet of Clayton

Perhaps the surest sign that movie fans aren't particularly interested in George Clooney's movies is the failure of Michael Clayton. Clayton was lavishly reviewed – and not in a highbrow, “this movie is important but baffling” way (like Syriana), but as a compelling legal thriller with knockout performances. It was heavily-marketed. It was even released twice – in early October, when it bombed the first time, and again after the Oscar nominations came out.

It had everything it needed to succeed. Advertising support, critical acclaim, Oscar nominations for three cast members, and, you know, George Clooney, "the world’s only movie star". It should have been his Erin Brockovich ($125m). And yet, with $48m at the box office, it came in 55th place, in between two movies I’ve never heard of (This Christmas and Premonition).

What is A Movie Star?
Being a movie star isn't just about the box office - but the box office is a big part of the mix because it shows how you connect to audiences. As to artistic achievement, I think he’s a charming enough actor, albeit with the limited range one usually associates with handsome leading men. I thoroughly enjoyed some of his minor hits, especially Three Kings and the very underrated Out of Sight (the best movie made from an Elmore Leonard novel). And I appreciate some of the risky choices he makes.

But there is a huge disconnect between the praise he receives and the almost total indifference with which audiences greet his movies. Further, he has yet to make an iconic movie - think Tom Hanks with his 90's trifecta of Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and Saving Private Ryan. Does Clooney have even one movie that has made an impression the way any of those three did? In fact, does Clooney have a cinematic moment to rival scenes from Apollo 13 (Houston, we have a problem.) or Castaway (Wilson the volleyball) or even Big (Hanks and Loggia dancing on the keyboard).

And how about Will Smith? Since 1996, he's made 13 movies:

Independence Day: $306m

I Am Legend: $255m

Men In Black: $251m

Men in Black2: $190m

Hitch: $179m

Pursuit of Happyness: $164m

Shark Tale: $161m

I, Robot: $145m

Bad Boys II: $139m

Wild Wild West: $114m

Enemy of the State: $112m

Ali: $58m

Bagger Vance: $31m

Wow. Only one flop (though it didn't flop as badly as Solaris or The Good German or Confessions of a Dangerous Mind or...). The only other sub-$100m movie, Ali, garnered him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. (He was also nominated for Happyness). Billions in box office. Multiple Oscar nominations. That, my friends, is a movie star.

There are many more actors who have a better mix of critical and commercial success. Russell Crowe. Denzel Washington. Even the much-maligned Tom Cruise had 7 straight $100m flicks before Lions for Lambs flopped. The 3 Mission Impossible films did about $100m more at the box office than the 3 Ocean films, and Cruise carried them by himself. Even Vanilla Sky did $100m.

Now What?
George Cloooney seems like a great guy to get a beer with, but he may be the most overrated person in the most overrated profession in the world. So what's next? The Ocean franchise has been sucked dry. His next movie, Leatherheads, well, you can check out the trailer and decide for yourself...

My guess is he'll remain popular, due to the interest in his personal life, his ridiculous good looks, and his masterful treatment of the press (read the Time story; the writer's got a serious man-crush on George). But I suspect it will be years before anybody but the readers of FreeTime and a few worried Hollywood executives will even notice that George Clooney is not the world's only movie star. In fact, he might not qualify as a movie star at all.

Update: I hate to pile on here but I had a thought. Clooney’s box office reputation, such as it is, depends almost entirely on the Ocean franchise. As I pointed our earlier, he hardly carried that franchise by himself, what with Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Andy Garcia, Catherine Zeta-Jones and others kicking in.

To make it worse, though, I compared Ocean to some other popular trilogies starring actual movie stars.

Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones trilogy: $618m
Tom Cruise/Mission trilogy: $529m
Matt Damon/Bourne trilogy: $524m
Clooney et al/Ocean trilogy: $425m

The Ocean trilogy is the only one of the bunch that declined in box office receipts each step of the way (Bourne is the only one to go up each step up of the way; MI went up, then down; Jones went down, then up).

And except for Sean Connery in the 3rd Indy flick, only the Ocean flicks relies on multiple movie stars.

False Idols

There are some good things about American Idol.

The contestants can sing - you don't make the final 24 out of tens of thousands of auditioners without a halfway decent voice. Simon Cowell is extremely entertaining, in part because of his zingers but mainly because is the most honest person in a medium where everyone else with a microphone is shading his opinion for either the audience or the producers. And finally, in an era when Mom's upstairs watching Lost, Dad's downstairs watching ESPN, and the kids are on their Playstations and XBox's, any show that brings the family together is a good thing.

But still...I'm not a fan...

A half-century ago most popular music was manufactured. All the record company needed was a voice and a look - they could then build a product around that. Change their hair, pick out outfits, provide them with songs and studio musicians and a producer. Then, start making the music that the record company wanted to hear, and package it for the audience.

In the past year I read a Mick Jagger interview in Rolling Stone and a book on Tom Petty in which each of them said that in the late 50's and early 60's, the whole idea of being a musican was unattainable. After all, where would you get all the stuff you'd need? The songs, the outfits, the whole professional apparatus that came with being a musician.

Then the Beatles came along and changed everything. They wrote the music and the lyrics for their songs. They did the arrangements. They played their own instruments. They named their records and, as they grew more powerful, chose everything from the song order to the album art to the release date. They even chose their own hair styles and outfits. In the course of a few years they changed their looks and their sounds, created concept albums, and changed the whole idea of what popular music could be. With their manager Brian Epstein and their producer George Martin, they were in complete ownership of their art.

Yes, others before had done parts of that, notably Chuck Berry, and before that some of the great country, blues, and jazz stars. But the Beatles were massively popular, and became the band that launched a million bands. From the Rolling Stones to Michael Jackson, from Bruce Springsteen to Pearl Jam, our greatest musicians have been the true creators of their art.

And when they weren't - when they were primarily vocalists like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey - they had some serious other-worldly pipes. Even Madonna, who doesn't have a particularly good voice, is an average dancer, and doesn't play an instrument, actually wrote some of her own hits and was certainly the creator of her persona.

But American Idol is taking us back to the pre-Beatles era of manufactured music. Just show up with a voice and a look, maybe a good back story, and let the record company take it from there. They'll provide the songs and the outfits and the musicians and the arrangements, and they'll build this whole music product around this modicum of fame built on a TV show.

One can make a case that it doesn't matter how the music is made - all that matters is the end result. And I'm sure that some decent music is coming out of the various winners and runners-up of American Idol.

But me? I like the idea of the singer-songwriter, the recording artist. Tom Petty said in a recent interview that he came from a time "before rock stars were invented on game shows." Game show seems like the greater part of the insult, but it's actually invented. Invented by producers and record companies and television shows.

I like music created in garages and basements, bars and buses. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fire up Guitar Hero III and make believe I'm Stevie Ray Vaughn for the next hour...

History In Rock & Roll

This piece started out as one thing, and ended up as something else entirely.

I intended to write something about the use of history in rock and roll…or to be more precise, the lack of it. Other forms of art – movies, novels, paintings – have drawn heavily on history for inspiration. But rock and roll, not so much.

And when it does, I thought, it usually screws it up. Think of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by the Band. A great song (especially the live version) but historically inaccurate:

Back with my wife in Tennessee,
When one day she called to me,
"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee.”

I thought, those silly Canadians, Robert E. Lee wasn’t in Tennessee during the Civil War.

Bob Dylan liked to sprinkle historical figures in his lyrics (“Napoleon in rags”), but he mangled a Lincoln quote in Talking World War III Blues:

Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all of the people can't be all right all of the time.
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.

You thought wrong, Bob. What Lincoln is reputed to have said is, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”


And my favorite, Billy Joel’s The Ballad of Billy the Kid. If you’ll allow me to quote at length.

From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia
Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand
And his daring life of crime
Made him a legend in his time
East and west of the Rio Grande

Well, he started with a bank in Colorado
In the pocket of his vest, a Colt he hid
And his age and his size
Took the teller by surprise
And the word spread of Billy the Kid

One cold day a posse captured Billy
And the judge said, "String 'im up for what he did!"
And the cowboys and their kin
Like the sea came pourin' in
To watch the hangin' of Billy the Kid

Well, he never traveled heavy
Yes, he always rode alone
And he soon put many older guns to shame
And he never had a sweetheart
But he finally found a home
Underneath the boothill grave that bears his name

Billy the Kid was not from Wheeling, or any other part of West Virginia. He didn’t rob banks. He didn’t ride alone. He killed with a Winchester rifle, not a Colt. He wasn’t captured by a posse, and he wasn’t hung. To paraphrase Mary McCarthy, every word is a lie, including “and” and “the”.

Clearly, I thought, rock lyricists have issues with history.

Digging in the Archives
To make my case stronger, I trolled through my own 5000 song iTunes catalogue, looking for more evidence of rock’s indifference to history. And I confess, I found the opposite. More lyricists than I realized had tackled history, some quite accurately.

For example…

Mr. Churchill Says, The Kinks
Bastille Day, Rush
Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones

The first two are among the most straightforward of the history rock songs in my collection. The Kinks capture England during the Battle of Britain. He even mentions historical figures like Beaverbrook, Mountbatten, and Montgomery. Rush captures the class warfare - as well as the beheadings - of the early French Revolution.

The lyrics of both are fairly uninspired, though Neal Peart turns a neat phrase with "See them bow their heads to die, as we would bow as they rode by".


Sympathy is the ultimate rock and roll romp through history. It starts on Calvary, takes us through the Hundred Years War, the Russian Revolution, the Blitzkrieg, and the assassinations of the Kennedys.

My only quibble with the song is this lyric:

I watched in glee while your Kings and Queens

Fought for ten decades for the Gods they made.

Presumably the "fought for ten decades" refers to the Hundred Years War. While many wars were fought over religion, this wasn't one of them.

Oliver’s Army, Elvis Costello
Not a history song at all, but one that requires knowledge of history to understand. The song is about mercenary soldiers, and Oliver refers to Oliver Cromwell, who rewarded his mercenary soldiers with land in Ireland - something Elvis Costello (aka Declan McManus) would be familiar with. "Mr. Churchill" is a stand-in for England.

Children's Crusade, Sting
Russians, Sting

History Will Teach Us Nothing, Sting

Gordon Sumner, the former schoolteacher, is clearly the songwriter most obsessed with history, and the idea that the past can - though often doesn't - teach us about the future.

Children's Crusade is about the young men slaughtered in WWI ("Young men, soldiers, Nineteen fourteen"); Russians is about the Cold War; History Will...is more of a political song:

Convince an enemy, convince him that he's wrong

Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long

A simple act of faith, in reason over might

To blow up his children will only prove him right

History will teach us nothing

Buffalo Soldiers, Bob Marley

There isn't a lot of history in this song, but what little there is seems accurate. More importantly, Marley captures why history is important in this lyric:

If you know your history,
Then you would know where you coming from,
Then you wouldnt have to ask me,
Who the eck do I think I am.

You said it, Bob.

Let It Be

(Roger Clemens is on Capitol Hill this morning to defend himself against the use of performance-enhancing drugs. He was accused by his former friend, trainer, and supplier, Brian McNamee. His former teammate, Andy Pettitte, has already confessed, and implicated Clemens. Makes me wonder what might have happened if the House of Lords, in the mid-1960’s, took an interest in the use of marijuana in rock and roll).

Member of Parliament
The House of Commons calls Paul McCartney from the Beatles. Mr. McCartney, thank you for joining us here today.

Paul
It's wonderful to be here. It's certainly a thrill.

MP

Mr. McCartney, we hope you will be honest with us here today.

Paul

Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey.

MP
Mr. McCartney, have you ever taken marijuana in order to enhance your abilities as a songwriter and a performer?

Paul
No sir. All you need is love.

MP
We have sworn testimony from a Mr. Robert Dylan, given to Joni Mitchell, that on August 28, 1964, he provided you with marijuana at the Delmonico hotel. Is that true?

Paul
He may have had some rolled up tobacco cigarettes, always trying to act like a cowboy, that guy. Look at the bloke's record. His real name's Zimmerman, you know? He's always knockin' on heaven's door, ringin' some new religion's bell... Do us a favor, Bob, open the door, let one of 'em in and stick with it.

MP
We are not here to talk about Mr. Dylan, but about your performance. Let’s look at the record, please. In your rookie season, 1964, you wrote lyrics like

Oh yeah, I´ll tell you something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand
I wanna hold your hand

Impressive. Especially that part where you rhyme “something” with “something”. Or this one from that same year:

She loves you, yeah yeah yeah
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah…yeah

Not exactly Shakespeare, is it?

Paul (mumbling…)
Life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting...

MP
Then, after the meeting in the Delmonico, your lyrics, as well as those of your partner, John Lennon, showed a dramatic change. Here, from your 1965 season:

Eleanor Rigby
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream. Waits at the window
wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

Quite an improvement, hmm?

Paul

Yes, I was getting better all the time.

MP
Or this one, from your 1967 season:

Picture yourself in boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

Do you honestly expect this committee to believe this improvement came about through good old-fashioned hard work?

Paul
Ah well, that one's all John.

MP

Ah yes, your bandmate, John Lennon. Mr. Lennon, in testimony given to us last week, corroborated Mr. Dylan's testimony. He said that he did, in fact, smoke marijuana that he received from Mr. Dylan.

Paul

Listen, do you want to know a secret? Transcendental meditation. Had a profound effect on my lyric writing. [to the audience] Who is this guy anyway? Are we really sure if he's even from the House of Lords?

MP
Thank you Mr. McCartney. We now call to the witness stand, Mr. Keith Richards...

Follow up on Divisiveness

David Brooks in the Times today shows how a Democratic President will have a hard time keeping a unity promise, even within his/her own party. This all rings very true to me...

Losers Beat Nobodies

Last month, I wrote a piece proving that most Super Bowl winning coaches have been (at the time of their hiring) either Losers (have NFL head coach experience, but of the losing kind) or Nobodies (have zero NFL head coach experience). Nobodies won 25 titles, and I suggested that hiring a Nobody was the best way to go.

Since I wrote that, every head coaching vacancy has been filled by a Nobody. Harbaugh in Baltimore, Sparano in Miami, Smith in Atlanta, and now Zorn in Washington. They are all following my advice!

But...I've changed my mind. Well, tweaked it actually. I just heard Jim Fassel being interviewed on ESPN Radio. Fassel led the 2000 Giants to the NFC Championship, but has been unable to land a head coaching gig since. In fact, he just lost the Redskins job to a Nobody, Jim Zorn. Zorn has some fame as a QB, but as a coach, his resume is pretty thin - he has never been a head coach or even a coordinator on any level.

Fassel made an interesting point: he said that 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls have been won by guys on their 2nd job. I checked, and he's right:

1. Tom Coughlin - Giants (Jags)
2. Tony Dungy - Colts (Bucs)
3. Bill Cowher - Steelers (first job)
4. Bill Belichick - Pats (Browns)
4. Belichick
5. Jon Gruden - Bucs (Raiders)
4. Belichick
6. Brian Billick - Ravens (first job)
7. Mike Shanahan - Broncos (Raiders)
7. Shanahan

Three titles were won by guys who were succesful, but ringless, in their first job (1,2,5). Five were won by two guys who were unsuccesful in their first job (4,7). And two were won by guys in their first job (3,6).

So, new rule for the 21st century NFL: hire a guy with NFL head coaching experience, whether it's modestly succesful or not. By this rule, it appears the Seahawks, who just announced Jim Mora Jr. will succeed Mike Holmgren in 2008, made the right call.

All the other teams, who probably made their hire after reading FreeTime, I offer my apologies.

Redesign

Like it? I worked really hard on it. It took two whole clicks of the mouse.

In Defense of Divisiveness

A big theme in this year’s election is unity. John McCain, the Republican most beloved by Democrats, and the soothing Democrat Barack Obama, both promise to end the political divisiveness that has plagued our national politics through the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

There is a lot of debate about whether or not they can succeed. But does anyone stop to wonder if, perhaps, unity is such a good thing?

Put differently: has anyone noticed that the list of America’s most successful Presidents is remarkably similar to the list of America’s most divisive Presidents?

The list starts with Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is widely considered to be America’s greatest President…but he’s got the Divisiveness Crown well in hand, too. Lincoln was elected President on November 6, 1860. He was inaugurated on March 4, 1861. In the 4-month interim between election and inauguration, 7 states seceded from the Union. They were so appalled at the idea of a Lincoln Presidency, they chose to leave the Union and start their own nation. Four more would follow.

Obviously, the divisiveness was more tragic than that. The Civil War ensued from the secession, and 600,000 American lives were lost. That, my friends, is divisiveness of the highest order.

While no other example is that stark, most great Presidents have not had the admiration of their political opponents:

FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt led a unified country through the Second World War, but his New Deal policies were fiercely contested by his political opponents through the Depression. As FDR began losing those battles in his 2nd term he unveiled his “court packing” plan – the idea was to simply add 5 new Supreme Court justices.

Republicans and conservative Democrats were disgusted at this power grab, and the Democrats were slaughtered in the mid-term elections of 1938.

Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was one of the first master practitioners - and victims - of nasty, partisan politics in American history. We know now the Sally Hemings story is true, but that doesn’t change the fact that his enemies hated him so much that they’d print it.

But TJ was no shrinking violet himself – he even secretly financed a newspaper to attack his opponents. The Federalist-Republican feud in the early 1800’s was a vicious back-alley fight that makes today's feuds seem like high tea at Harrods.

Jackson
Andrew Jackson was more despised by his political opponents than even Bush or Clinton could claim. He was even called a murderer – one campaign bill featured a picture of 6 coffins representing men Jackson had executed in court-martials or killed in duels. The attacks on him were so severe he blamed them for his wife’s sickness and death.


Coincidence?

What does all this mean? Is it merely a coincidence that great Presidents inspire the deepest hatred among their political opponents?

Of course not. Greatness only comes to the bold, to those who have and act upon strongly held convictions. Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt were all powerful and effective leaders who had a very strong vision for the United States. They were attacked by those who disagreed. The South, for example, realized that Lincoln's positions on slavery were dramatically different than the wishy-washy compromisers who preceded him.

You want unity? Try Warren Harding on for size. Harding ran on a “let’s all get along” platform. His most famous speech came while running for President, in which he argued for normalcy:

"America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality...."

Yawn... But seriously, if you heard Barack Obama give this speech, would you be surprised? (Well, maybe at the use of the words nostrums and equipoise.) Would you nod your head along in agreement?

Harding was immensely popular while in office, but today, historians rank him among our least effective Presidents.

So, the next time you hear one of the candidates tell you that they are going to unify the country, stop to ask yourself if that is all it’s cracked up to be.


Sidebar: McCain may be the Democrat's favorite Republican, but he's the conservative Republican's least favorite Republican. Rush Limbaugh, whom you would assume is dedicating every waking moment to fighting the Clinton Restoration, in fact spends most of his time attacking John McCain. In this respect, McCain is similar to FDR, who sometimes inspired more vitriol from conservative Democrats than from Republicans.

More Nicknames for Tyree Catch

Via the Max Kellerman show on ESPN Radio:

His-Tyree.

And more nominees from the crowd at BigBlueInteractive:

The Dynasty Killer

The Great E-scape

The Glendale Grab

The Reception that Ruined Perfection

Houdini & The Helmet

The Clutch (since Eli escaped the clutches...and Tyree clutched it)
(see more below)

Dewey Beats Truman

Nicknames for Tyree Catch

I started a thread on BigBlueInteractive to nickname The Tyree Catch. Here's what we/they've come up with so far. I've bolded the ones I like the best:

The Hel-Mitt Catch

The Hat Trick

The Great Escape

No name, just a signal. Place both hands about a foot over the top of your head with criss crossed fingers

The Holy MutherF'ing Sh** Catch

The Slip, Whip and Grip

The Crowning Moment

The Reach

The "Kiss from God"

If Tomlinson is LT to ESPN Then this is "The Catch"

The Helmet Catch

The Helmet Grab

The Great Escape... then the Great Capture

THE CLAMP

THE PLAY

The PERFECT catch

I AM LEGEND

The Scrambling Houdini

Update: Sports Guy is calling it "the Miracle Play to Be Named Later"

Perfectville

The New York Football Giants

Wow.

I doubt that I have anything original or insightful to say about this that you won't find anywhere else. But I can't not write about the greatest sporting event in my life, so here goes:

1. Dwight Clark had "The Catch". Franco Harris had "The Immaculate Reception". Gerard Phelan caught the "Hail Flutie". I hope to God somebody comes up with a nickname for that miraculous David Tyree catch on the winning drive. It was really two plays in one - Eli escaping from a near sack, and then Tyree making the spectacular falling-down-press-against-helmet-one-inch-off-the-ground grab. Any suggestions?

2. Are we allowed to say Tom Brady choked? I realize he is one of sport's untouchables, that he is, in fact, allowed to go on vacation with his girlfriend after stinking it up in the AFC Championship game and get no criticism. But in the biggest game of his life, he saw pressure, and played poorly. That's a choke, isn't it? This is a year after the Patriots blew a 21-3 lead at halftime of the AFC Championship game.

3. Back to Tyree...it was against Rodney Harrison, one of the game's dirtiest players. Bonus.

4. Why is there any debate about the Patriots' place in history? It's very simple: they join teams like UNLV 90 and Seattle Mariners 01 and the Colts and Orioles in 69 that had wonderful regular seasons and lost when it mattered. They are not allowed in the "greatest teams in history" conversation. That is for champions only.

5. Did I pick a great time to start a blog or what? If I can brag just a little bit:

• On December 16th, I wrote a column defending Eli. If I may immodestly quote myself:

Do Giants fans remember that game-tying playoff drive last year? 2nd & 30, down 7 points, in the 4th quarter, in a playoff game, at Philadelphia of all places – and Eli completed consecutive passes of 18, 14 and 11 yards to Plaxico Burress, the last one in the end zone. How can you watch that and not think this kid has what it takes?That was not his first, or last, 4th quarter
comeback. His first win, against the Cowboys, in 04. The Cowboys again in 05 (blown by the D). The Broncos in 05. The Bears in 07.

• On December 26 I wrote a piece called "The Fate of the Pats", that talked about how how-flying offensive teams tend to fall in January. Key line..."And yet...I think they're going down in January."


• I refused to outright pick the Giants to win, but outlined the reasons they could here.

6. This is the best thing that could happen to The Sports Guy's writing. The source of his greatness - besides the fact that he's a deceptively talented writer - is that he's a fan. Most sportswriters seem, after a while, to hate sports. Too much time spent in locker rooms with guys that are bigger, stronger, richer, and more beloved than they are...and are often jerks. So they turn on these guys, and the whole stench of professional sports. But The Sports Guy has kept his fan's perspective.

But being a Boston guy, he has had an unnatural amount of winning the past few years. And his writing suffered. Read - or try to read - this interminably boring piece predicting the Patriots will crush the Giants. No way he writes something this turgid about a team he cares about that is playing poorly.

This one should put his writing back in order. Welcome back, Bill.

7. I went to 4 Giants game this year, including the debacle against the Vikings. Everybody talks about how at 0-2, down 17-3 at halftime to the Redskins, you wouldn't have picked the Giants to do this. But more importantly, go to that Vikings game. Giants lost 42-17. At home. In late November. To the Vikings.

8. I just went to the Wikpedia entry on David Tyree. It already includes a description of his catch. What if we call it the "Hell-Mitt Catch"? Nah. How about "Hat Trick"?

9. I just went in the fan forum on Big Blue Interactive and started a thread to nickname the catch...Hopefully by tomorrow morning there will be some good suggestions.

Update: some folks have already made some suggestions: The Great Escape...The Slip, Whip & Grip...The Play...and The Holy MutherF'ing Sh** Catch

10. If you were running the "Eli Manning Sucks Blog", would you continue to say he sucks? Well, you have to admire this guy's tenacity...

11. I know...I've rambled on for hundreds of words and haven't even mentioned the real reason they won - pressure on the QB. What can I tell you, it's late. Good night.

Final Thoughts on SB XLII

Why Petty?
I've heard people wonder why a 57 year-old guy who hasn't had a hit in years is the Super Bowl half-time act. The answer is easy: classic rock dominates the concert scene. The Top 10 tours of 2007 were:

1. The Police
2. Justin Timberlake
3. Van Halen
4. Rod Stewart
5. Genesis
6. Bon Jovi
7. Dave Matthews Band
8. Billy Joel
9. Roger Waters
10. Bruce Springsteen et. al.

7 of these acts began their career in the 70's - or earlier. Most of them don't have a new album to promote. Only one of them, the cute kid from the boy band, had a Top 20 album in 2007 (though I'm sure Bon Jovi's concert sales were helped by opening-act Daughtry, who had one of the best-selling albums of 07).

So, if you're for a lip-synced performance that's heavy on dance moves, by all means go for the 20-something singer/dancers who have nice voices but have never touched an instrument in their life. But if you want a live performance, it's only rock and roll for me.

Spygate
I haven't touched yet on Spygate. I know the conventional wisdom on this is that spying on the other team is the football equivalent of driving 65 in a 55 zone: everyone does it, there is no harm, and nobody should be punished.

Maybe that's true. I don't claim to be an expert on what teams do about signs, or whether or not it helps much. But I do have one problem with the whole thing: if it wasn't a big deal, why did Roger Goodell hit the Patriots with the biggest fine in league history?

Belichick got hit for $500,000, the team for $250,000 and a first round draft choice. That is a killer penalty. An interesting part of the penalty is that the NFL officially claimed it was for the Patriots' "totality of conduct" and not just the Jets game.

The massive penalty (given by a league that would rather not draw extremely negative attention to its most admired team) and the fact that it was for more than just the Jets game, suggests to me that we still don't know the full story here.

(Update: interesting piece in the Times today, in which former prosecutors question the NFL's investigative techniques. It's highly unusual, they say, to investigate wrongdoing by merely asking the "suspect" to turn over whatever evidence they deem appropriate.)

Play Ball

That's all I got. I can't read, much less write, another word about Coughlin's gregariousness, Plax's knee (and mouth), Eli's vindication, Brady's foot, or anything else. It's time to play the damn game.

The Obama Letdown

I remember calling my Dad the evening of October 3, 2000, and telling him that Bush had just won the election.

October 3 was the night of the first Bush-Gore debate. Gore entered the debate with a tiny lead in the polls (48% to 46%). He was a sitting Vice-President, the country was at peace, and the economy seemed strong (though in, fact, the recession had already begun). Polls done immediately after the debate suggested that Gore had, barely, won the debate.

So why did I think Bush had just won the election? Because he was the beneficiary of low expectations.

As I’ve written before, our reaction to many things - movies, books, restaurants, vacations – is decided largely by our expectations. We all know that feeling from movies – the anticipated blockbuster that fizzles, or the small movie that takes you by surprise. We're less aware of it when it happens in sports, but it's just as strong: Alex Rodriguez gets booed while David Wright, not playing nearly as well, is cheered. It’s all about expectations.

This is true of Presidential candidates, too. Most Americans don’t follow politics very closely. They pick up snippets from Leno and Letterman, hear a celebrity make a crack to Matt Lauer, listen to Jon Stewart’s monologue and interviews.

And if, in the fall of 2000, if you were one of those people who hadn’t really tuned in to the election yet, Jay and Dave and Jon and everyone else had led you to believe that George Bush was just about the stupidest human who ever walked the face of the earth. This man couldn’t tie his shoelaces. He couldn’t feed himself. He may have degrees from Harvard and Yale, but this was only because of family connections; he should have gone to the Rocco Globbo School for the Galactically Stupid.

Huge numbers of Americans then tune in to that first debate – 75 million on the night of October 3. And something amazing happened in that debate…George Bush did not drool on himself. He did not perform magnificently, or even particularly well. But he did fine, and more or less held his own. Al Gore, the great intellectual, was supposed to wipe the floor with George Bush, the class dunce. And he failed.

George Bush was the beneficiary of low expectations.

What does this have to do with Barack Obama?

Does Barack Obama have low expectations? Er, no. He is a knight in shining armor, the great orator of his day, the man who will ride in on a white horse and single-handedly save America from its enemies within and without. He is John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, with a dash of Abe Lincoln and a teaspoon of Bono.

I’m exaggerating a little, but not much. The late-night comics are reluctant to go after him. The Clintons got hammered for playing hardball last week. And if Jon Stewart had a writing staff, they would know damn well that their audience adores this guy.

But one has to ask…is he being set up for a fall? I think so. A line in a Times article just before the New Hampshire primary caught my eye:

Political pied pipers often prove ephemeral. Mr. Obama’s support among a focus group at Dartmouth sagged noticeably after students watched him debate more veteran Democrats.

Dartmouth students fit the Obama demographic perfectly. They are young. They are educated. They are affluent. They are extremely excited about Barack Obama. But when they actually saw him go toe-to-toe with “veteran Democrats”, he didn’t live up to the absurdly lofty expectations they had for him.

It’s the opposite of George Bush. At some point, perhaps against Hillary, perhaps against McCain, there will be an Obama letdown. Will it stop him from reaching the White House? I think so.

His first try, anyway.

Brady 07: Best Ever?

Around the time Jimmy Carter was giving way to Ronald Reagan, the NFL was rapidly evolving from a Run First to a Pass First League. In retrospect, three pivotal events in a 5 year period made this clear:

1979: Dan Fouts, in San Diego's Air Coryell offense, became the first quarterback to throw for 4000 yards

1981: Joe Montana, running Bill Walsh's version of the pass-oriented West Coast offense, won the first of many 49er Super Bowls.

1983: Six quarterbacks were taken in the NFL draft; 4 of them would play in Super Bowls (with 10 starts and 2 Wins) and 3 of them would be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

It was now a quarterback's league. But which quarterback had the greatest single season since that series of events? Tom Brady's record-breaking 50 TDs, combined with the Patriots record-breaking scoring season, have people wondering if his 2007 campaign fits the bill.


There are three contenders: Dan Marino in 1984, Peyton Manning in 2004, and now Tom Brady in 2007. Let's look first at the main statistics people associate with the quarterback:







Based on this, you'd have to give the edge to Brady. More yards than Manning, fewer picks than Marino, and more TDs and higher pass % than either.


But...the TD differential is statistically insignificant. And while Brady easily beats Marino in % and picks, it's really too close to call with Manning. Still, he threw for 250 more yards. Time to expand the categories a bit:





Hmm...now it's getting interesting. Brady threw 34 more passes than Marino, and 81 more passes than Manning. In Manning's case, the Colts wrapped up their division early and Manning rested significantly down the stretch in 04. Jim Sorgi played parts of 4 games, even threw 2 TDs. It's likely Manning would have thrown more TD passes and more yards than Brady if he had played those quarters.

But more important is that YPA - Yards Per Attempt. YPA is considered the most meaningful quarterback statistic, and for good reason. It measures, obviously, how much production you are getting out of each pass. Brady's 8.3 is very good - it led the league in 2007.

But it's not great. In fact, it's a very low total for a league leader - in the Super Bowl era 36 league leaders have had a higher YPA. Romo led the league last year with 8.6. Big Ben had 8.9 the year before that. Guys like Eric Hipple and Jay Schroeder and Chris Chandler have led the league with higher YPAs. Leading the league with an 8.3 YPA is like winning a batting title with a .324 average.

Brady had a great season in 2007. But every category is either incredibly close (%, TDs, QB rating, INTs), or Brady's totals were inflated by throwing more passes (yardage). Manning has a clear statistical edge over Brady in a hugely important statistic. This, coupled with Marino's 17 INTs, gives the nod to Manning 04 as the most productive season a QB has ever had.


Note to Stat Haters
Please don't tell me stats are meaningless. You're the same guy who will be sitting in a bar using stats to proclaim Brady was the best in 07 ("He had 50 TD passes, man! Manning only had 49!"). You'll just be using the wrong stats, or not enough stats.

Note to Stat Lovers

For a discussion of how Yards Per Attempt and QB Rating correlate to Winning, go here. QB Rating is often knocked, but it does seem to correlate to Winning. Manning's QB Rating in 04 was an NFL record.

Bonus Fun Fact
While passing yardage and TD passes have increased through the years, YPA has remained fairly constant since WWII. In fact, the only QBs with a single-season YPA higher than 10 were Norm Van Brocklin ('54), Otto Graham ('55 and '47), and Sid Luckman ('43).

Reasons to Believe

I don’t do predictions. I’m far more interested in making arguments based on the past than predictions for the future.

This is partly because I’m a history buff, and believe that all kinds of stupid things are said by people who are ignorant of the past. To believe that today’s political operatives are rougher than those of the past could only mean you know nothing about the blood-sport that was American politics from 1800 to the Civil War. To believe Derek Jeter is the greatest shortstop ever can only mean you’ve never seen the back of Honus Wagner’s baseball card.

But it’s also because making predictions is a fool’s game. Even people who dedicate their lives to a particular topic are regularly embarrassed in their predictions. Monkeys throwing darts beat stock market experts. Economists can’t agree on whether a recession is coming. As for meteorologists…let’s just say I don’t cancel my tee time if the forecast is for rain.

Then there is the NFL. You can make a case that Dr. Z from Sports Illustrated is the most knowledgeable football writer in the world. Like him or not, nobody else combines his encyclopedic knowledge of football history with copious viewing of current game film. So how did Dr. Z do in his picks for the NFL season?

He thought the Bears, Panthers, Saints, Eagles, Bengals, Ravens, and Broncos would make the playoffs. He thought the Saints, would defeat the Chargers in the Super Bowl. He thought the Giants would go 6-10. And it’s not just Z. Vegas oddsmakers, who are better than anyone else at making sports predictions, predicted a Bears-Saints NFC Championship game. Neither team made the playoffs.

All this is my way of saying that I am not going to predict that the New York Football Giants are going to upset the undefeated New England Patriots on Sunday. I am, however, going to give you 5 reasons they have a chance:

1. Momentum
As stated previously, the Patriots are not the dominating team they were through the first 10 weeks of the season when they had 9 blowouts, and victories over the Colts and Cowboys. Since then they have dodged many bullets, including last week when only the timidity of Norv Turner prevented an injury-riddled Chargers team from knocking them off. The Giants, meanwhile, are playing their best football of the year.

2. 38-35.

3. Faith
For a big upset to happen, especially in a sport that rewards intensity, it is critical for the underdog to believe it can win. The Giants aren’t cocky – they understand the enormity of the task ahead of them. But 38-35, plus victories over the two best teams in the NFC, make them believe they can win.

4. Rest
On ESPN Radio this morning, Mike Greenberg said, “The 2 weeks off is favorable to the Patriots in every conceivable way.” And went on to talk about Belichick’s preparation, the Giants momentum slowing down, etc.

I completely disagree. The Giants have been playing must-win football games since the Redskins loss. They have been on the road for weeks. Big Blue desperately needed to rest, and desperately needed to get off a plane for a few days. The break enables them to do it without in any way slowing their momentum. Do you think they are going to forget what they’ve done in the last month?

5. Luck
Sports fans are reluctant to admit what a huge role luck plays in sports. Over time, naturally, the better teams prove themselves and the lesser teams lose. But in a single game, a single series, a single moment, anything can happen. Just ask these guys. Or these guys. Or these guys.


So, no predictions, but some reasons to believe. Unfortunately, Dr. Z just picked the Giants to win. So they may be doomed…

Will Ledger Be Legend?

It is often said by insensitive hacks like me that death can be an outstanding career move. With the death of Heath Ledger - handsome, talented, young, promising - one can't help but speculate whether he will be bathed in immortal glory like so many others who died young.

My guess is no. Before I explain why, let's look at the King and Queen of actors who died young, and whose legend far outpaced their actual accomplishments.

James Dean
Dean is the King. He is a true Hollywood immortal, despite making only 3 movies (he was posthumously nominated for an Oscar in 2 of them). One was a classic (Rebel without a Cause), and the other two were greatly admired in their day but rarely watched today (East of Eden and Giant).

We'll never know if Dean would have had the kind of career that, say, Paul Newman had (10 Oscar nominations, 1 Oscar win, and some ofthe movies' most indelible moments). But in some ways Dean is more revered, since he didn't live so damn long. He didn't have the opportunity to make any bad movies, to hit any rough patches in his career, to grow old. He died perfect.

How is this for an unscientific (but still useful) comparison: I googled "James Dean" and got 7.1 million hits. "Paul Newman" - who made 80 more movies and has lived (so far) 60 more years - only turned up 4.6 million.

Marilyn Monroe

If Dean is the King, Marilyn's the Queen. 15 million google hits on "Marilyn Monroe", who was the Pamela Lee Anderson of her time (but with better taste in men). She made a handful of well-known movies, but was never nominated for an Oscar. While moments like this are known to all, few people under 70 can tell you what movie it actually came from.

Despite this rather thin resume, she is probably the most famous actress who ever lived - an unlikely scenario, if she still walked among us.

What About Heath?
Heath seems like a contender for a halo. He was ridiculously handsome. Admired by critics. Like Dean, he starred in a culturally important film. He seemed to make choices based more on art than commerce. He had a set of stones, as evidenced by his decision to play the Joker after Jack's iconic performance. And let's face it: Australians are cool.

But my guess is that, in time, Ledger will be as forgotten as River Phoenix (1.2m on Google). Phoenix had a similar resume: a short but impressive film career (including an Oscar nomination), Byronic good looks, and a far more "romantic" death (Johnny Depp's Viper Room vs. Mary Kate Olson's bedroom, without Mary Kate?* No contest). But he's rarely spoken of today, and I doubt the average college student even knows who he is ("Um, is he like Joaquin Phoenix's brother?")

The problem is Celebrity Inflation. In Dean's and Monroe's day, there were far fewer celebrities, and we knew far less about them. Today, with so many "stars" and so much information about them, who can keep track? US Weekly's home page has a list of 30 top celebrities, and I haven't even heard of some of them. Heidi Montag? Lauren Conrad? Spencer Pratt? Who are these people? I've heard of Nick Lachey, but I'm not really sure why he's famous. I think he dates other famous people.

There are so many "hot" celebrities - some created by reality shows, some who make sex tapes, some who do genuinely good work (the entire cast of Sopranos, anyone?). We are constantly told of the next new thing who is taking the world by storm (Keira Knightley! Daniel Radcliffe! Shia LaBeouf! Zac Efron!*) In Dean's day, there was, what, maybe 2 talks shows that interviewed actors? Today there are a dozen or more. And every guest on every one of these shows is a "celebrity".

Plus, we know far too much about them. See pictures of them getting their coffee, on vacation, pushing strollers. We see before and after plastic surgery shots. There is no sense of mystery anymore.

With such Celebrity Inflation, even the giant celebrities of today (George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks) have trouble competing with the legends of yesteryear (John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant). So I can't see Heath Ledger hanging with James Dean on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Then again, he looks really good in The Dark Knight. That could change everything...

* my wife tells me that early reports about the apartment belonging to an Olson twin were false. But I just couldn't let go of the Viper Room line...

Sidebar: Ledger's 2000 film, The Patriot, was the biggest cinematic disappointment of my life. For reasons I can't explain, there has never been a truly great movie about the American Revolution. Countless great films about Vietnam and WWII and a handful about the Civil War, but not a single one about the American Revolution. When it was announced that Mel Gibson, in his first historical movie since Braveheart, was joining with Robert Rodat, the screenwriter of Saving Private Ryan, on a Revolutionary War flick, expectations soared. But alas, the world still awaits a great film about the Revolution.

Also, we've had hundreds of great films about cops, but none about firefighters. I do have a theory about that, though: fires have no plot.

Losers & Nobodies

If you were the GM of an NFL team with a head coaching vacancy, which of the following should you hire:

a) A proven winner, like Super Bowl Champ Bill Cowher
b) A proven loser, like Cam Cameron
c) A complete nobody, like Jim Harbaugh’s brother

If history is any guide, hire the nobody. If he’s not available, hire the loser.

There have been 41 Super Bowl champions. Every single one of them has been won by a Head Coach who came to that team with exactly zero Super Bowl titles on their resume. ¾ of them have been won by losers and nobodies.

Here’s the breakdown:

Complete Nobodys (25 titles)
These 14 guys won 26 titles. The day they were hired by the team they won the Bowls for, their fan base said, “Who?”

Chuck Noll (4 titles)
Joe Gibbs (3)
Bill Walsh (3)
Vince Lombardi (2 - plus a bunch of NFL titles)
Tom Landry (2)
Bill Parcells (2)
Tom Flores (2)
George Siefert (2)
Don McCafferty
John Madden
Mike Holmgren
Brian Billick
Bill Cowher

(Yes, I'm aware that many of these guys had distinguished careers as assistants before getting their head coaching job, as illustrated by the picture above)

Proven Losers (5 titles)These two had experience – of the losing kind.

Bill Belichick (3 titles…losing record in 4 of his 5 Cleveland seasons)
Mike Shanahan (2 titles in Denver…8-12 with the Raiders)

College Degrees (3 titles)These guys won college titles, but had never been in an NFL locker room:

Jimmy Johnson (2)
Barry Switzer

Celebrity Coach (1 title)
Ditka deserves his own category. The Bears were his first head coaching gig, but he was neither a complete nobody nor a proven loser. At least I won’t call him one…

Ring-less Success (3 titles)These 3 guys each had some success as a Head Coach before switching teams and winning a Super Bowl.

Jon Gruden
Dick Vermeil
Tony Dungy

Quasi-Exceptions to the Rule - But Somebody Had to Win (3 titles)
In Super Bowl III Weeb Ewbank, who had won 2 titles with the Colts in the late 50’s (pre-Super Bowl Era) faced off against Don Shula, who would go on to win 2 Super Bowls with the Dolphins. Shula, had he won, would have been the exception to the rule.

Ewbank’s Jets won, giving Weeb his only Super Bowl title. Coupled with his Colts' titles, he is the only head coach to have won an NFL title with two different teams (good trivia question, huh?)

Won Super Bowl...Switched Teams and Won Another Super Bowl (0 titles)

Well, nobody has done that. Won't happen this year, either. If the Pats win, the Losers get another title. If the Giants win, Coughlin joins Gruden, Dungy, and Vermeil.

What happened to the Champs?On 13 different occasions an NFL team hired a head coach who had already won a Super Bowl. None of them won again.

Gibbs - round 2 with Redskins
Flores - Seahawks
Johnson - Dolphins
Lombardi - Redskins
Parcells - Jets/Pats*/Boys
Siefert - Panthers
Stram - Saints
McCafferty - Lions
Ditka - Saints
Holmgren - Seahawks*
Vermeil - Chiefs

* won Conference championship

Update: Fassel, a Qualified Loser, lost the Skins job to a Nobody, but makes a convincing argument that Losers Beat Nobodies. I address it here...

FreeTime: NFL January

There is so much going on in the world. A gripping nomination battle in both parties that will determine our nation's future. A spreading economic fear (driven more by fear than facts). War in the Middle East*. Climate change that threatens our very existence.

But who cares? The Giants are in the Super Bowl!

I'd like to apologize in advance to my legions of readers who come here to read captivating articles about the evils of gerrymandering+, or who have been eagerly awaiting my multi-part series comparing Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

For the next couple of weeks (longer, if the G-Men win), expect a lot of NFL coverage here at FreeTime...


* as Dave Barry once wrote, "...there will never be peace in the Middle East. Billions of years from now, when Earth is hurtling toward the Sun and there is nothing left alive on the planet except a few microorganisms, the microorganisms living in the Middle East will be bitter enemies."
+ Note to the irony-challenged: Yes, I do realize my piece about the evils of gerrymandering was not, in fact, captivating.

Akeem's Play by Play

All Hail The New York Giants

It's past midnight and I can't sleep. This will probably be the least coherent post you'll see on FreeTime, but what the hell. I'm still revved up from one of the Top 5 sports fans moments of my life. It's not Mookie-Buckner or Norwood wide right for a single powerful moment. But for sheer up and down drama it's right there with Niners-Giants NFC Championship in 90, and for unexpected pleasure, it's easily #1.

A few observations:

• When the Giants played their starters in Week 17 against the Pats, everyone had little pros and cons in their heads about the decision. But I don't think anybody said, "You know, one of the pros is that if they play well, and then meet the Patriots in the Super Bowl, they'll have confidence they can win." But that's what has happened. It's hard to imagine a team that will be as big an underdog as the G-men will be, but still have justified confidence they can win.


• 12 quarterbacks have played in the postseason (not counting guys like Billy Volek). Eleven of them have thrown at least one interception. I think you know who has zero.
• Also, only one guy has 3 Wins (hint: it's the same guy)


• Let's put it a different way: those 12 quarterbacks have 20 starts between them. In those 20 starts only 5 have been INT-less. Eli has 3 of them (Hasselback and Brady the others)


• Good call by my buddy Gombo...in the first quarter, Al Harris is shoving and jawing at Plaxico Burress. Gombo says, "You know, this could work out for the Giants. Plax is a guy who can take a play off here and there, but Harris may fire him up." Burress finished with 11 catches for 154 yards.


• You know how a lot of sports fans think every call goes against their team? Well, I'm not that guy. But I couldn't help shake the feeling during this game that Roger Goodell stopped by the official's locker room before the game and dropped hints about how a Favre-Brady matchup would be good for the NFL. The hold on Snee during Bradshaw's TD run and the 3rd and 5 call that extended the Packer's first FG were head-scratchers.


• Oh...and if the Packers had won, we would have had one of the great missed camera shots of all time. In the 3rd quarter, the Giants stopped the Pack on a crucial 3rd and 5...but Sam Madison got called for a 15 yard personal foul that extended the drive. Favre threw a TD pass moments later. Cameras never did catch what Madison did.


• Good observation by Windex...the Giants didn't put much pressure on Favre, but they tackled extremely well. It was as if the G's game plan was to let Favre complete little dinks all day, but tackle 'em for 2 yard gains. On one series, Favre completed 3 straight passes for lost yardage.


• You know how everyone killed Eli for his sideline demeanor mid-season? Being calm through good times and bad is one of those qualities that everybody thinks is wonderful when you win (see Brady, Tom; and Torre, Joe), but terrible when you lose (see Manning, Eli and Torre, Joe). Being wildly emotional is the same thing (see Coughlin, Tom).

• I understand that Brett Favre is a greater American than Lincoln, a greater humanitarian than Mother Theresa, a greater artist than Michelangelo, and a greater philosopher than Plato. But wasn't there room for anyone, in all the pre-game blathering, to say, "You know, Brett Favre has thrown more stupid intereceptions in his life than most of the guys who've ever played the game combined. Maybe he'll throw some today." Favre, even more than most of us, has the vices of his virtues. But none of the professional commentators were allowed to say it, because it didn't fit the script.

• To the 47 non-believers (you know who you are): Norwood missed from 47; Tynes makes it from 47. (And, of course, there was this 47). For 47 Believers it was further proof we are on the righteous path. All heretics, go here, and learn to believe.

Can the Giants go all the way? As I wrote a while ago, the Patriots are not the dominant, soul-crushing team they were through the first 2 and a half months of the season. At 10-0, the Patriots had 9 blowouts (17 points or more); their only close win was a road victory against the defending champs. Back then we were actually talking about whether or not the Patriots were arseholes for running up the score (they were; and they are).

Since then, the Pats have played 8 games. Yes, they've won all 8. But they barely slipped by mediocre teams like the Ravens and Eagles. They allowed genuinely awful teams like the Jets and Dolphins to play them close late. A Charger team whose 3 best offensive players were hobbled hung around today. And, of course, on the last day of the regular season they just eked out a shootout win against the New York Football Giants.

The Patriots are the best team in football. But they can be had.

The Prodigal Boss

If Elvis is Jesus (as I blasphemously argued last month), then Bruce Springsteen is the Prodigal Son.

It is indisputable that The Boss is more beloved in his home region than any other American rock star. If you live in or near New Jersey, you know many people who are as passionate about Bruce as Green Bayers are about the Packers. They have seen 15 rock concerts in the last decade – and 14 were Bruce shows (the 15th was Southside Johnny at the Stone Pony). The only CDs they have purchased in the last 10 years are The Rising and Magic. They have Bruce coffee table books. They scan Bruce web sites like Backstreets and Greasy Lake for set lists. They bring newborns to the concert like it was a church revival. The announcement of a Bruce tour is greeted with the ecstasy of a papal visit, and elaborate ticket-grabbing schemes are devised.

This sort of passionate intensity for a musician is unusual, at least for 40- and 50-something suburbanites. It is usually seen only in teenagers and Deadheads. How does one explain this?

Mainly, of course, it's the music. None of this is possible if the music didn't deeply touch the core of a large number of music fans. And when I say "the music", I also refer to its live form. Bruce has been one of the most consistently entertaining live acts for decades. He connects with his audience, he's funny, he seems to be having a blast, and he plays for hours. On stage and in the studio, Bruce Springsteen embodies both the Rock Star and the Regular Guy more than any other musician in rock history.

And as my buddy Windex points out, Bruce is one of the rare rockers who is still making good music late in life. The Rising and Magic may not be as good as Born to Run or Darkness, but they're a helluva lot better than Face the Promise or The Naked Ride Home.

But frankly, that's not enough of an explanation for me. I believe that the passion that exists today is far greater than it would have been if Bruce hadn't, like the Prodigal Son, left New Jersey...and then returned.

The Parable of the Boss
Let's pick up our story in the mid-80's. Bruce is at the height of his popularity. He originally made it big in '75 with Born to Run and a historic 10-night run at The Bottom Line in New York City. He even appeared on the covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week.

But Born in the USA, released in 1984, put him in the stratosphere. Some stats (yes, you can always count on stats at FreeTime!): From 1973 to 1983, Bruce had exactly one Top Ten hit (Hungry Heart topped out at #5). Born in the USA alone had seven Top Ten hits. His previous six albums sold a combined 19 million records;. USA sold 15 million on its own. His live album, released in '86, sold another 13 million copies. (These are all U.S. figures).

Bruce Springsteen was on top of the world, and he was New Jersey's favorite son.


"the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country"
And then, it seemed, he started to change. True Bruce fans, of course, were already uncomfortable with his new popularity, the way any group of early fans is ambivalent when their favorite artist finds a huge mainstream audience. But now Bruce was big time.

He married (and promptly divorced) a beautiful young actress. Then he left New Jersey. And he didn't just go anywhere...he went to the anti-Jersey...Hollywood. He started spending quality time with movie stars, contributing songs to movie sound tracks.

And worst of all, he...he...he... he broke up the E Street Band.

He hooked up with some L.A. session musicians and made a couple of mediocre albums (Lucky Town and Human Touch). He then went on tour with these imposters, doing a set heavy on new music. Instead of Thunder Road or Jungleland, he closed each show with Light of Day, a song he wrote for a Michael J. Fox movie. When he did his old stuff, it was either radically re-worked or featured someone who was clearly NOT Clarence Clemons doing the sax solo. His new wife, Patty Scialfa, was a Jersey girl, which was a good thing, but her prominence in the concerts was Yoko-esque. He did a poorly received MTV Unplugged appearance (and album), with "E Street ringers focusing on Bruce's 'solo' material ... well, we won't go there." (Entertainment Weekly)

His Jersey fans weren't happy. In fact, his Meadowlands shows weren't even sold out until show time. Can you imagine that today?

He followed that, in 1995, with the Ghost of Tom Joad tour, in support of the folk album of the same name. This tour, in small arenas, again featured lots of new stuff and dramatically re-worked versions of old songs.
As my buddy Gombo, a lifelong fan, put it, "I just assumed that the old Bruce, the 3-hour concert with the E Street Band, with Backstreets and Rosalita and Night, was gone forever."


"so he got up and went to his father"
But he wasn't gone forever. After that tour, he moved back to New Jersey. In 1998, he released Tracks, featuring dozens of old songs, mostly with the E Stret Band. And in 1999, he he brought the band back together, and went on the Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Reunion tour.

This was the old Bruce. He played Born to Run and Thunder Road and Tenth Avenue Freezout. He shared a mike with Little Steven and Clarence roared on his sax.

In 2002 he released The Rising, the first studio album with the E Street Band in 18 years. The Rising may be the most powerful work of art inspired by September 11, an event that hit hardest at the place he was from (more New Jerseyans died on 9/11 than New Yorkers).

The Boss was back.

"get the fatted calf and kill it"

My point - and I do have one - is this: the passion of the modern Bruce fan, at least in New Jersey and its environs, would never have reached its heightened pitch, if he hadn't abandoned them for so long. If Bruce hadn't broken up the band and moved to Hollywood, they would not have killed the fatted calf for him.

As the father of the Prodigal Son said to his other son, "But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found."


Extra

1. It was only in researching this that I discovered Bruce recorded an album called "The Prodigal Son" in 1972, but never released it. Details are here.
2. My bet is that the single lowest point for passionate Bruce fans during the bad time was this calamity... (turn down your speakers if you're at work)

It's Good to Be the King

There is so much to say about this NFL weekend, I may have to resort to a Peter King-style ramble...

My Crystal Ball
First, a review of my (sort of) predictions:

As one of a tiny group of Eli defenders, I can take some satisfaction in his performance the past two weeks: 4 TDs, 0 INTs, QB ratings of 117.1 and 132.4. He didn't throw for a ton of yards, but consider this: smart football people think the most important QB statistic is YPA, or yards per pass attempt. Eli's playoff YPA is 7.73 yards. How good is that? The league leader in 2007 was, of course, Tom Brady, at 8.3. Romo was 2nd at 7.7.

So, on the road, in the playoffs, against the #1 pass and #13 pass defenses, Eli put up huge numbers in the stats that matter. Oh, and he won.

My other prediction, however, that the Patriots would fall, is looking shaky. My prediction rested in part, on bad weather, and it didn't come in the first round. Brady and Co. got a dry, fast track for Saturday's game. And in the 2nd round, they get to play a Chargers team that saw most of their best players injured. It's hard to see the Pats going down now.

Never Say Never (or Always)
Many prognosticators, be they barstool blowhards, radio ranters, or media mouths, often make the mistake of saying the word "never" when attacking various coaches and players, and "always" when praising them. Here's an index of reasons to avoid absolutes when making predictions:

• Coughlin, Tom (playoff games, ability to win)
• Turner, Norv (ibid)
• Manning, Eli (demeanor on sidelines, importance of)
• Romo, Tony (legend, growth of)
• Vinatieri, Adam (clutch kicks, maker of)

Saint Brett

This morning, I was sipping a decaff pumpkin spice double latte and pondering the greatness of Brett Favre. Not his greatness as a football player - that is undeniable - but his greatness as a father, a husband, a healer, a bringer of peace, an avatar of all that is good in this worl, ...whoa, sorry, guess I began taking this Peter King thing a little too seriously...

Best Moment

Eli's drive to end the first half was great, but not as joyous as Romo's pick to end the game. Those were both topped, however, by the shot of Jerry Jones' dumbfounded expression on the sidelines. Surely, it can't get any better than that, I thought. But then TO broke down in his post-game news conference. Terrell Owens, arguably the worst teammate in modern American sports, voice cracking about the media picking on "my teammate...my quarterback" was a transcendent moment.

(In case you've stumbled upon this blog, you've probably figured out I'm a Cowgirls-hating Giants fan).

Update: since writing this this morning, I've had an opportunity to see the TO crying clip 3 more times. Like a great movie, it rewards multiple viewings, and gets funnier every time. Also, if you're familiar with the "Leave Britney Alone" YouTube clip, you might appreciate this "Leave Tony Alone" parody. And not to get too far off the reservation, but if you think the Britney clip is funny, here is a Seth Green parody of that...

TO Was Right (Wait...He Was Wrong)

I may doubt TO's sincerity, but he was right in defending Romo. There were 4 QBs with a bye.

• Brady went to NY with his latest supermodel girlfriend for a vacation
• Favre went to Mississipi to be with his family
• Romo went to Mexico with his girlfriend and some teammates

I don't know about Peyton. Wouldn't be surprised if Peyton abstains from marital relations from training camp to the end of the season...

Point is, players on byes take time off and spend them with loved ones - or at least, incredibly beautiful women. One can make a case that Romo, unlike the sainted Favre and Brady, at least spent it with teammates, too.

Update: After reading Dr. Z's take on this (written before the game), I've changed my mind. He starts by outlining how poorly Romo played down the stretch and then says:

If I were Wade Phillips and I had an open weekend ahead, I wouldn't make Romo strap on the pads and get to work, but I'd damn well make sure to tell him to get his ass into Jason Garrett's office and work this thing out. Instead it's off to Cancun on the Airhead Express with his tootsie. I don't buy it. If I were betting, I'd jump on the Giants, getting 7½.

Kick 'Em When They're Up

I pride myself on knocking athletes when they're up (Jeter back in '99-'01) and defending them when they're down (Eli & Coughlin the past two years). Just a natural tendency to go against the grain, I guess. So I'd like to be one of the only people to say a word against the tide of praise for Tom Brady.

It's nothing against Brady, per se, who is a great quarterback. But like most NFL fans, I've watched a fair amount of Brady this year, and I'm not sure if any quarterback has ever had an easier season than the Sage of Foxboro. A typical 2007 Patriots' pass play goes something like this:

1. Brady takes snap
2. Brady drops back 3 steps
3. Brady scans the field. He has time. Lots of time. Enough time to read Moby Dick, learn Farsi, broker peace in the Middle East, fantasize about super-models, and scan the Fall fashion line for new suits.
4. Brady throws to a wide open Wes Welker. Or to a completely covered Randy Moss, who catches it anyway.

Of course, this isn't entirely true. Brady doesn't have to fantasize about super-models.

Brady is good enough to be good on any team. He's deservedly punched his ticket to Canton. But I'm reasonably sure that most starting quarterbacks in the NFL would have had put up superlative numbers guiding this offense. And Peyton might have thrown for 60 TDs.

Prevent O

Football fans are familiar with the Prevent D, when a team with the lead allows their opponent to march upfield, trading yardage for time. I'd like to coin a new term - the Prevent O.

We saw it in both games yesterday as the Chargers and Giants, with small leads, went super-conservative on their final drives. They tried to run time off rather than get first downs (and risk turnovers). In both cases, they had fast 3-and-outs, and the Colts and Boys got the ball back.

It's easy to criticize such a strategy - especially if, as in these cases, you're giving the ball back to great offenses.

But...Dr. Z tells a story about Tom Landry that has always stuck with me.

It happens to all of them, the near great and the very great, such as Tom Landry, one of history's finest game strategists. Nov. 9, 1980, Giants vs. Cowboys in the Meadowlands. Dallas was on its way to the NFC Championship game.
The Giants had just lost eight straight. Somehow the score was tied at 35 all -- late in the fourth quarter. The Cowboys had a fourth and one on their own 47.
They went for it and Brad Van Pelt stopped Robert Newhouse for no gain. The Giants took over, kicked a field goal and won. I talked to Landry very late, after the Cowboy locker room had practically cleared out.
"I violated one of my own most important principles," he said. "At the end of a close game, you always have to ask the question: 'What's the easiest way for us to lose?' And then you have to make sure to avoid it.

For the Giants and the Chargers, the easiest way to lose the game late in the 4th quarter was to turn it over in their own end. Turner and Coughlin both made the right call to go Prevent O.

Mad Dog

I'll close with a quick story from this NFL season. At the height of the Michael Vick stuff this year, Mike & Mad Dog had the following exchange on WFAN radio in New York (this is only funny if you know M& the MD):

Mike: Vick made his court appearance yesterday, and PETA was there protesting.

Mad Dog: Peter? Peter King?!? Peter King was there?!?

Mike: No, PETA. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Mike went on to patiently explain to Mad Dog what PETA is...

Wish I Wrote This #1

I don't know if this will become a regular feature or not. Probably depends on how lazy I am, or how much good stuff I read. But every once in a while I may pass something along that I wish I wrote.

Here's a piece in today's New York Times by film critic A.O. Scott about taking children to movies that may be outside their comfort zone. Enjoy.

Rattus Gluteus: Hall of Fame Thoughts

Roger Clemens may not give a rat's ass if he gets into the Hall of Fame, but most players do.

Yesterday was one of those rare Cooperstown elections in which the issue was in doubt, as two on-the-bubble guys - Goose Gossage and Jim Rice - tried again for the 75% of votes required for entry. Goose got in easily (85%), mainly thanks to a weak class, and Rice just missed again (72%). (And no, that is not a dish of Rat's Ass; it is Roast Goose and Rice over Tofu...yum!)\ Normally I have very strong feelings, based on comparative statistical analysis, about a player's Hall credentials. But I don't have strong feelings about these guys. One is very hard to judge, and one is really sitting right on top of that bubble. But I'm going to give it a shot.

Before I do, let me tell you my parameters. I believe that in order to win election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY, the highest honor conferred on an American athlete, a player must do at least one of the following:

• Be an elite, dominant, Top 5 guy for a period of about 10 years 
• Be a consistently very good player for a very long time, placing high on all-time career lists

Those players that do both of these things should be accorded the officially meaningless, but somehow important honor of a first-ballot election.

The Goose
Gossage is hard to judge with statistics because he played in an era when relievers were used in a way they had never been used before, and would never be used again, making comparative analysis impossible. For the 7 decades before Gossage's career, relievers came into games, if at all, after the starters had decided the issue. For the 2 decades since his prime, relievers are 9th inning specialists who rarely come into pressure situations, and rarely pitch more than one inning.

Here's a statistic that shows how different closers are used today: Gossage got 7 or more outs in 52 of his 310 career saves. Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman, combined, have saved nearly a thousand games, but only 3 required 7 outs or more. Most people see that stat and say, hey, Goose deserves the Hall, or man, these guys today are wimps. I see it and say, shoot, how the heck do I compare these guys? The answer is, you can't.

So I have to go more on feel. And I gotta tell ya - I'm not feeling it for Goose.

There's no question that from 1977 through 1985 - about 10 years - Goose Gossage was a helluva pitcher. His ERA was under 3.00 all 9 years, well under in 6 of them. There's no surer way to a stats geek's heart (and mind) than ERA, and he had a nice run there.
But here are some other things about Goose that - comparative analysis aside - don't quite feel Cooperstownish:

• He had 8 seasons with a losing record


• He had 10 seasons with an ERA over 3.50


• He may not have been a one-inning specialist, but he wasn't quite the warhorse people are making him out to be: except for his one season as a starter (9-17, 3.94 ERA), he pitched over 100 innings only 4 times in 21 seasons. 

•  No Cy Youngs and no 2nd place finishes. He placed 3rd once, and 5th three times. 

• And how's this for a comparative: Dan Quisenberry, pitching in roughly the same era, had a lower reliever ERA (2.76 to 2.77), fewer Inherited Runners Scored Per Innings Pitched (.77 to .86), a higher save % (75 to 64), and a higher Outs per Save (5.19 to 4.72). Quiz's best Hall of Fame result was 3.8%. He had a much shorter career, but Gossage wasn't very good outside his 9 year run. 

That 64% save percentage is interesting. You can't compare it to the 85% that the 9th inning guys regularly get today, and it's competitive with the other good relievers of his era. But anytime you hear someone say Goose was "automatic", consider that more than 1/3 of the time he entered the game with a lead, he coughed it up.

Rich "Goose" Gossage was elected to the Hall of Fame on his 9th try. He had a wonderful career that he should be very proud of, but I'm inclined to say the voters had it right the first 8 times.

(Oh, and one last thing, I have no use for people who say hitters feared Gossage. I'm less interested in what hitters felt than what they did. I fear large bugs - doesn't mean they can hurt me.)

As for Rice... 

 How many times do you think the following conversation happened from 1975 - 1985:

Baseball Fan 1: Who's the best pitcher in baseball? 

Baseball Fan 2: Hmmm....Rich Gossage. 

I'd say, outside the Gossage household, never. How many times, though, do you think this conversation happened during that exact same time frame:

Baseball Fan 1: Who's the best hitter in baseball? 

Baseball Fan 2: Hmmm...Jim Rice. 

 I bet, a lot. (Yes, that's the kind of hard-hitting statistical analysis you can expect on FreeTime).

From 1975 to 1986 (remember my 10 year rule above), Jim Rice was a dominant hitter.

• He received MVP votes in 8 seasons with one 1st, one 2nd, two 3rds, two 4ths, and a 5th. 

• He made 8 All Star teams, starting 4 times. 

• He consistently placed in the Top 5 in every key power hitting category (homers, ribbies, slugging, OPS), and has a trophy case full of home run titles (3), RBI titles (2), Total Bases titles (4) and OPS titles (1). 

And how's this for a fun fact: he even led the league in triples one year.

 My one gripe about Rice...and it's a silly one, because we shouldn't put too much weight on arbitrary milestones...but I wish he'd gotten to 400 homers (he finished with 382). That would've given him, in my mind, the right combination of a 10 year great stretch, plus very good overall career numbers, to make it a sure thing.

But for me, there is just enough there to pull the lever or tick the box or punch the chad or whatever Hall of Fame voters do. I hope he gets in next year, his last on the ballot, but it won't be an outrage if he doesn't.

(Hat tip to Lucky for suggesting today's topic.)

Barack Obama & The Activist’s Dilemma

For a long time I’ve been interested in what I call “The Activist’s Dilemma”. I’ll illustrate the Activist’s Dilemma with a fictional activist movement – the LUNATICS (League of United Natives Against The Invading Creatures from Space).

The LUNATICS fervently believe that the earth is ill-prepared to defend itself from an attack by aliens. Like any cause, they need money and supporters. So, at every opportunity, they explain to potential donors and supporters that the threat is grave, that action must soon be taken, and that we are totally and completely unprepared for an alien invasion.

The movement is well run and gains some traction. Support grows and huge strides are made. Donations increase. The LUNATICS become important political players, giving money and endorsements to candidates who support their issue. One by one, goals they have set for themselves are achieved, and defenses against alien invasion are considerably strengthened. A LUNATIC is even appointed Secretary of Defense. The movement is a success!

But…here’s the dilemma. In order for the movement to remain successful, the LUNATICS must say they have failed. In other words, if they tout their achievements, then the world will begin to believe that we are sufficiently prepared for alien invasion, and time and money can be turned to other causes. To keep vigilance alive, they must make the case that there has been little progress – which runs the risk of making the LUNATICS look like failures. (The go-to activist phrase here is: there is much work to be done.)

That is the Activist’s Dilemma. And you can apply it to any cause you can think of (except those with specific endgames, like electing a specific electoral candidate).

What does this have to do with Barack Obama?
There has been no greater activist cause in American history than civil rights for African-Americans. It has featured specific noble causes like Abolition and voting rights and heroic enterprises like the Underground Railroad and the Selma marches. It has counted among its champions people from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King – each of whom gave the greatest speeches in American history on the topic. It has inspired great works of art. It has made consistent and measurable progress over a long period of time.

And it is quite possible that in November of this year that the movement will have torn down so many walls and crashed through so many ceilings that Barack Obama (who, with his Kenyan father and Kansan mother, is truly an African-American), will be elected President of the United States. One can’t help but think that Frederick Douglass and Reverend King are enjoying this moment somewhere.

But…here’s the dilemma. As a political movement, civil rights for African-Americans must compete with other causes for time, money, passion, media attention, and legislative focus. And some of those competitors (the environment, the war) are on a roll. The modern civil rights movement largely rests on the contention that the United States is a society that denies equal political, educational, social and economic equality to African-Americans. If Barack Obama – born without privilege, Harvard-educated, financially successful – becomes the 44th President of the United States, that contention becomes harder to make.

So in a strange and screwy way, the elevation of an African American to the Oval Office could have a potentially negative effect on the movement (if not the actual cause) for civil rights for African-Americans. But not that strange, really - it is the dilemma faced by all successful activist causes.

Update (1/14/08): Interesting piece in the Washington Post titled "As Obama Rises, Old Guard Civil Rights Leaders Scowl".

Note: the Activist’s Dilemma is something I’ve spoken about for years, but the Obama part is influenced by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal (see here, 2nd item). I disagree with Taranto’s conclusions about the impact of an Obama election on party politics, but the way he got there made me tie it into my own thoughts about activism.

Broken Windows, Roe, & Economic Fatherhood

I just finished a new post, but since I started it back in early December, it was published in the archives. If you're interested in reading it (it's about the various competing theories for the 1990's crime rate decline - sounds interesting, doesn't it?) click here.

If that sounds too heavy, try the Line Rider game...