Eli to Canton: The Math

It's been a week since the Super Bowl and I still wake up each morning with a smile on my face.

A wise man (my buddy Rob) once noted that being a sports fan is a losing proposition. Even Yankee fans end more seasons in heartbreak than not, and for fans of normal teams it's an endless cycle of disappointment punctuated by the occasional glorious title. (Or as Rob put it: "I'm 3-90, lifetime!")

Well, Giants fans have been blessed with two very special championships in 4 years. Sure, all titles are special, but these had a little extra seasoning. The combination of their serendipity, the closeness of the games, the quality of the opponents*, and the class of the organization...I'm getting weepy just thinking about it.

* Combined records of the 8 teams the Giants beat on the way to its 2 Super Bowls: 108-26. Six of the eight teams were 13-3 or better in regular season.

I'm not going to do any game analysis here - it's all been done to death. I really want to make two quick points, and then have an extended discussion about Eli Manning's Hall of Fame chances.

First, the two quick points:

• Underrated star of the postseason was Hakeem Nicks. He had a spectacular season (76 catches/1186 yards/7 TDs in only 14 games). But he was overshadowed by the even more spectacular Victor Cruz (82 catches, 1536 yards, and 9 TDs in 14 games, with a crazy-good 18.7 average). Cruz deservedly became a New York folk hero, but Nicks lit up the postseason: 28 catches, 444 yards, and 4 touches. In the combined 18 games, he passed Cruz in catches and TD catches. Nicks got way less love than he deserved*.

* Bonus video coverage: I think this catch was a much harder grab than the Manningham catch. And if you've never seen this highlight from a catch he made at North Carolina, check it out. It's as amazing as the Tyree Helmet Grab).

• I'm hoping the phrase "I can't throw the ball and catch the ball" catches on, as a general phrase for "I can't do everything." (I know, the original phrase was "My husband can't..." but I don't have much use for that.)

Now, on to Eli's Hall of Fame chances.

A Canton Career?

A lot of ridiculous nonsense has been spouted by people in the past week. Indeed, I believe that any writer*, announcer, or pundit of any kind who argues that Eli has now surpassed Peyton in greatness should immediately have their credentials stripped from them.

Peyton has won 4 league MVPs. Guess who has more? NOBODY! He has won more MVPs than anyone who has ever played the game. He's 3rd all time in passing yards. He's 3rd all time in touchdowns. He's thrown 125 more TD passes than Joe Montana. He's been in 11 Pro Bowls. He's one of the greatest of all time, and even Eli's most devoted supporters (of which I'm one) know he is not that.

* A special award for outrageous stupidity should go to Foxsports Jason Whitlock. On Showtime's Inside the NFL he made his unsupported-by-facts "Eli will surpass Peyton" argument. After Phil Simms and Cris Collinsworth (who clearly knew they were dealing with a moron) pointed out how the Colts crashed without him this year, he argued that was Peyton's fault, too, since he built the team around himself. How does this dolt have a job as a professional sportswriter and I'm writing this blog that only you are reading?

Eli may not be on Peyton's level, but he's building a fine career on his own. Many folks have made the Eli to Canton argument, and they talk about the Super Bowls and the fourth quarter comebacks and his unruffled demeanor. But you see, when you're talking Halls of Fame - football, baseball, basketball, whatever - it's essentially a math problem. You look at the numbers, do some projections, and voila' - you can make a pretty good guess at their chances. And guess what: Eli has a damn good chance of making the Hall of Fame.

Here's my methodology for projecting Eli Manning as a Hall of Fame candidate:

• I looked at the last six QBs elected, all of whose career started in the 80's or later (Elway, Marino, Moon, Kelly, Young, Aikman)
• I focused on six key metrics: passing yards, touchdown passes, interceptions, TD/Int ratio, SB MVP, and League MVP*
• I projected the remainder of Eli's career. I assumed a 14 year career, which would actually be below average compared to the aforementioned 6 (all played 15 or more but Aikman [12] and Kelly [who wasted 3 seasons in the USFL]
• I assumed, for Eli, an average of 3,500 yards and 20 TDs per year, over those six years. That is very conservative, I think, especially considering he went for 4900 yards and 29 TDs this year, and has two great young receivers
• Finally, I added another calculation, showing a more aggressive projection. I assume 16 seasons, at 3,750 yards per and 25 touchdowns per. Again, this is below his numbers the past few years, and 16 seasons is reasonable

* I chose these stats because they are the ones most valued by Hall of Fame voters. Completion percentage, for example, is not valued by the Hall, or Chad Pennington (highest all time) would be writing his Acceptance Speech.

LINK TO CHART: ELI MANNING VS. LAST 6 HoFers

So how do those proections match up with those six? Using the conservative numbers, pretty damn good. Nearly 50,000 yards passing and over 300 TDs. More Super Bowl MVPs than anyone. Only Aikman has more titles, but he destroys Aikman in yards and TDs*. His yardage and TD numbers also blow away Young and Kelly, and of course his titles blow away Marino and Moon.

* You can make a good case Aikman doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame. He was a pretty good quarterback on a team with a fabulous defense and the great Emmitt Smith.

His career would be most comparable to Elway - indeed, using my numbers, they would be nearly identical to Elway. Of course, Eli threw in a more pass-happy league than Elway. But Eli has one big advantage over Elway: his Super Bowl teams, especially this one, were built on his arm. Elway's Super Bowl teams were built on Terrell Davis' legs.

With these numbers (and they could be much better, if he plays like he did this year for a few years), he'd rank in the Top 10 of all time, maybe even the Top 5, in the two key Hall stats. Only 4 QBs in history have thrown for over 50,000 yards, and only 6 have thrown over 300 touchdown passes. Brady and Brees will likely join that group as well, but no other active quarterback is ahead of Eli's pace.

I thought the interceptions would hurt him more, but I was wrong. Yes, he led the league twice in picks, but again, using my projections, his career is a near-perfect match to Elway. And his TD/INT ratio is better than Aikman, Elway, Kelly, and Moon. (Again, Aikman's performance here is less than Hall-worthy).

And of course, he has the intangibles. He already has more 4th quarter comebacks than HoFers Staubach, Aikman, Griese, Dawson, Starr, and others. He'll likely pass Fouts, Bradshaw, Kelly, and Montana before he's done.

And finally, if you're wondering if he's just a beneficiary of the pass-happy NFL, the answer is "not really". Among active players, Peyton and Brady* are already all-time greats and Brees is cruising to Canton. But Eli is ahead of his 2004 classmates, Roethlisberger and Rivers, and Aaron Rodgers will suffer from a late start in his career. No other active player projects comfortably for the Hall of Fame right now.

* These two guys are playing for higher stakes right now: the chance to be known as the greatest of all time. But those quests took huge hits this year, as Peyton's assault on the record books was checked, perhaps irrevocably, and Brady...well, you know what happened to him.

Eli does have one big knock against him: Pro Bowls. He's only been to two so far. And in a conference featuring Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Matthew Stafford, it will be no easy task to make them in the years ahead. Of course, if he wins a 3rd Super Bowl he'll be a lock.

Of course, these are the conservative numbers. Use the aggressive numbers and you're approaching 60,000 yards and 400 touchdowns. Toss in another Super Bowl or two, and you have a career that Joe Montana would envy. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Either way, the math looks good. Of course, in the violent world of the National Football League, health is the key. Eli Manning has been an amazingly durable player, but so was his brother. Eli needs to play a lot more football before he gets a plaque in NFL Hall of Fame. But at this rate, it's looking pretty darn good.

See ya in Canton.

Bonus Fun Fact for Jets fans who are sick of hearing about Eli: Sometime in the first game of next season, the announcers will inform us that Eli Manning has just passed Joe Namath in passing yardage

C Student in X's and O's

There's a lot of plays on that call sheet.

I have a confession to make. I don't really understand football.

I know a lot about football. I know that 4 yards a carry is a good average, that a facemask penalty is 15 yards, and that a slot receiver lines up off tackle. I could break down, in enormous detail, the differences between Dan Marino's 1984 season, Peyton Manning's 2004 season, and Tom Brady's 2007 season*. When a flag is thrown, I usually know what the penalty is. And recently, while driving home with the Rock Star, we tried to name every Super Bowl winner, and damn near got 'em all right (though I had a few out of order; it's tough to put those 70's Cowboys, Dolphins, and Raiders in the right order).

* In fact, I did.

But when I'm actually watching a game, I'm pretty sure that 90% of what is happening on the field is going over my head. In fact, I'm pretty sure that 60% of it is going over the head of a Pop Warner coach.

Football has always been an enormously complicated game - 22 players on the field have rather specific assignments on each play. Sometimes those assignments are simple, sometimes they have options and variations mid-play. How can you track all of them?

But today's NFL has taken to it another level. A few years back, ESPN Magazine broke down everything that goes on in the head of Peyton Manning prior to a snap. The defense is set up in a pass D - or is it a run D disguised as a pass D? The middle linebacker sneaks up one step...Manning keeps his eye on him. Strong safety takes two steps left. Manning barks out a few signals and changes the play...or did he? Hike. Linebackers shift, safety shifts, Manning throws a ball to an unoccupied spot in the end zone - where Reggie Wayne arrives a moment later to catch it.

Who could break that down as its happening? The answer is: nobody. Even Peyton Manning, sitting in a broadcast booth five years from now, won't be able to thoroughly break it down as he watches, say, Andrew Luck against the Steelers. To do so would require not only Manning's superhuman football IQ, but an inner knowledge of the workings of Luck's offense, detailed study of the Steelers pass coverage schemes, and certitude of the original called play, to know if Luck audibled or fake-audibled.

If Future Peyton doesn't know what just happened, what chance does an average fan have?

I bring all this up because, as you may have heard, the Giants and Patriots have a rematch of Super Bowl 42 coming up. The exhausting, mind-numbing coverage have focused almost entirely on non-football stuff. The Rematch. Eli playing in his brother's building. The personalities of the coaches. The history of Tom Brady's hair.

We do all this because, frankly, most of us can't have an intelligent conversation about zone blitzes, run blocking schemes and defensive audibles. That's why, on NFL Mondays all around the country, sports radio features non-stop discussions of things like clock management and body language. Few callers are smart enough to talk about a defense's failure to adjust to the right guard's interior blocking, so instead we call up and blame the loss on the head coach's sideline demeanor, or the fact that he went on it at 4th and 1 from his own 48.

We are, however, breeding a smarter generation of football fans. Tomorrow's football fans will have thousands and thousands of hours of Madden behind them - selecting defenses, calling plays, even strategizing seasons. This is much better preparation for Advanced Fanship than what I bring to the table.

I'm trying my best, I really am, to ignore all the silly stuff that has no impact on what happens between the lines. I like the way the Giants' offense matches up against the Patriots' defense; I worry about our safeties covering their tight ends; and I think, if Vince Wilfork brings his A game, look out.

But then I can't help noticing...the Patriots are 13-2 since Brady cut his hair...

Handful of Dust: An NFC Poetry Slam

Remember the Coffee Klatsch?

The Klatsch is a bunch of friends I worked with in the 90’s. Shin, Cormie, Stod, and I had many things in common: we worked in publishing, were literary dilettantes, admirers of select female colleagues, and nostalgic sports fans.

We also differed on important subjects, like war and economics and modern literature and Jennifer Aniston (for the record, I'm in favor of two, against one, and conflicted on another).

Anyway, back in 1990 when the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers met in the regular season Shin and I made a bet: if the Niners won I would write a poem in their honor; if the Giants won, he would do the same*. We repeated the bet for the NFC Championship game and later playoff games.

* Did I mention we were literary dilettantes?

The Niners won a classic game, of course, and I wrote a sports masterpiece that sadly, like most of Sophocles’ plays, is lost*. Shin repaid in January, and we went back and forth a few times over the years with various sports and teams.

* All the stars on those Niner teams had names that were also words, which I used to brilliant effect. Brilliant, that is, if you were a six year old who loved bad puns. There was ‘running Watters’ and ‘hit a Lott’ and ‘no white on that Rice’ and ‘Young arm’ (Steve) and "Young massive torso" (Bryant)...well, you get the point.

Over the past week, Shin, Cormie and I – with a nudge from Stod and a whisper from BAM (our Stu Sutcliffe, sans tumor) – engaged in the nerdiest trash talking of the year. Here, I give you, the NFC Poetry Slam:

Pre Game Trash Talk

Shin:

The roars were audible from Brisbane to Nyack

When Alex said simply, "Boys, get on my back"

Smith ran round Osi and right over J. Tuck

Grabbed his crotch and said "Eat my PeePee, JPP, you miserable f*ck"

He's vanished his demons, fulfilled all his whims

Hell, he's almost Montana, much better than Simms.

Corm:

There once was a guy from New York

Who got mad when we called Simms a dork

He talked lots of smack

But took much of it back

Through a rhyme scheme that almost did work.

Keatang (last line should be read like you're Seinfeld's mother):

He was picked number one and the orchestras sung,

But for a half dozen years he played like horse dung,

A sweep left for a score,

To Vernon for one more,

And suddenly he's Montana and Young?

Shin:

Since the day I was born I have loved me some Giants*

Just the sound of the word is like a brand new appliance

So yes, I hate me some Dodgers

And they should have picked Rodgers

But they'll clobber New York in defiance

* ed: he refers to the San Francisco Giants

Corm (channeling Robert Burns, after Eli missed practice with a stomach ailment):

Wee, sleekit, cowring tim'rous beastie

Eli, what gurglins in thy breastie

Thou need na start excuse so hasty

Wi burbling belly

Fear the Niners wad rin an chase thee

Wi murdering prattle.

Corm (channeling Thomas Percy, letting Alex know he’s not quite there yet):

And when yon task be fifteen yeere old

Then shall you be crowned kinge

Brisbaine’s Tana, that was once uprore

You did to quiet bring.

First strike the Giants from the realm

Dared they opprest this land

To Canton then, throughe manly feates

of football, head and hand.

BAM (poor guy’s a Browns fan, and has no dog in this fight):

Now NFL Football it ain't my best game

The Cleveland Browns they're just f*cking lame

But on a bandwagon I jump

Both Giants and Niners I trump

So either team can win, I'm the same.

Post Game Loser’s Poems

Shin:

On account of how I now know more of their names

And that yesterday was the first in forever where I watched two football games

I can say Brady's a fighter, and, it looks like, a lover

Manning's a winner, maybe even better than big brother

The Harbaughs a nice story but that one is over

Victor from UMass should be rolling in clover

The Giants are mighty and making big millions

And they should send partial share to Kyle Effing Williams.

Corm (channeling T.S. Eliot):

January is the cruelest month

Giants from back east, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Niner brains with spring rain

Fall kept us warm, a season's

Generous dose of forgetful snow, feeding

a fan's life with dried tubers

Eli surprised us, coming over the middle

To Cruz balls dropped like rain, tween our colonnade

And ran to sunlight, into the Superbowl

We drank beer, and talked it over

Bin kar keine Niner, stamm aus New York echt Giant 20

We cannot say or guess, for no one knows

A heap of broken images, where Williams stands

And the dead season gives no shelter, no relief, 17

From this dry stone no water,

Only Eli, whose shadow rose to meet us

Ending our year in a handful of dust

Reverse Jinxing the Giants

About the New York Football Giants...

I feel like the backup second baseman on a team where the pitcher has a perfect game going. Nobody is supposed to say anything to the pitcher for fear of jinxing it. But especially not an insignificant person like the backup second baseman. The catcher might obliquely discuss strategy with the pitcher, the star hitter might exhort the lineup to score more runs, the shortstop might remind his teammates to stay sharp on the infield. But bench warmers should sit meekly in the corner and say NOTHING to NOBODY about NOTHING!

That's sort of how I feel about this run the Giants are on. After a 7-7 start where the G-Men lost to some bad teams, needed 4th quarter comebacks for 5 wins, and were, in total, outscored by the opposition, this team is suddenly playing like an elite football team. And fans are wondering if...

Well, hold on there. I don't want any jinxy-cat thoughts to float into my head. I dream of exorcising the Trey Junkin demons*. I dream of shutting up every Patriot fan who thinks SB42 was a helmet fluke. I dream of making Ray Lewis cry on the sideline, erasing the stain of Super Bowl XXXV. But I'm nervous about giving voice to these dreams - I have a fear of jinxing this team like I never have before.

* Watching the clip still hurts, not just because of the epic meltdown but because the Niners should have been flagged for pass interference on the play. Mike Pereira, who has been a great addition to the Fox broadcast team, was head of officiating at the time, and he made the official decision that it was a blown call, and the Giants should have had a second chance to line up - this time for a chip shot field goal - to win the game.

Regular readers know I didn't have this superstition aversion in January 08. I had multiple blogasms back then. But this time, well, let's say I'm knocking more wood than a carpenter with the yips.

I'm a deeply rational guy. I don't believe in astrology or ghosts or sixth senses. I don't believe in black cats or unlucky numbers or curses. When someone has a feeling that something is going to happen, and that thing actually happens, I don't think it's because they have some sort of second sight - I think that a) they are incapable of recognizing the underlying rational thoughts that led to their feeling and b) they have conveniently forgotten the many times their feeling was wrong.

But when it comes to sports, I'm worse than a medieval peasant in the Transylvanian forest. For example, my daughter gave me some blue and white Mardi Gras beads to wear to the Cowboys game in Week 17. I wore them to MetLife Stadium and voila - Giants won the NFC East! Naturally I took them back to the stadium for the Falcons game and - they worked again!

Would they work on television? Sure enough, I wore them for the Packer game and even though Green Bay is 1,004 miles away from my living room, they worked! I'm sticking with the beads, baby.

I get this from my father. Poppa Keats is a religious man - he's a lector at his church, the pastor of his fire department, and wouldn't miss Mass on Sunday if he had to swim the Mississippi, climb Everest, and parachute from a skyscraper to get there. But he believes in a higher power - he believes the single biggest factor in the outcome of every Giants' game is whether or not he's watching. We frequently have conversations like the one we had Sunday night:

Me: What'd you think of the game Sunday?

Dad: Ah, I missed it.

Me: You missed it?! You missed the playoff game.

Dad: Well, I was watching, but Rodgers threw the TD pass to open the 2nd quarter so I turned it off. I put it back on again in the 4th, and he threw another one.

Me: Dad, I read a lot of articles about the game, and nobody seems to think your turning the TV off was a factor.

Dad: They won, didn't they?

In light of all this, I want to avoid any conversations of "If we win Sunday...". So in an attempt at a little counter-jinx, here's why the Giants won't win Sunday:

• The 49ers had a regular season point differential of +151! The Giants actually gave up more points than (400) than they scored (394). No team has ever won a Super Bowl with a negative regular season point differential.
• As for the myth that the Niners have a weak offense and the Giants a strong one...not really true. Niners are ranked 26th in offense and the Giants 8th, but that measures yards. In points scored they are 11th, the Giants 9th.
• You may have read this elsewhere, but the Giants are ranked Last in rushing. And not just rushing yards, but Last in yards per attempt, too. The Niner defense is ranked First in rushing yards allowed, and First in yards per attempt. That seems like a bad combo.

So yeah, the Niners struggled down the stretch, barely eking out wins against the Seahawks and Rams, and losing to the Cardinals. Sure, the Niners lost to two teams the Giants beat this year (Cowboys and Cardinals). And yeah, the Giants' point differential in each of the past four games is higher than their entire regular season combined (+15, +17, +22, +17), and they came against teams with a .500 record or better. And it's true that the last time these teams played the Giants best rusher and best linebacker were home nursing injuries.

But the important thing to note here is that I am not making any positive assumptions about this Sunday. I hope the gods (now that they are through with Tebow) are listening.

Tebow Has All the Tools...but One

Here at FreeTime, we like to kick them when they're up and lift them when they're down. This is partly because we're pathologically obsessed with The Overrated and The Underrated*, and partly because debate is sort of like Olympic diving - degree of difficulty matters.

* In fact, when I was coming up with a name for this blog, one idea was Overrated/Underrated, with every story focused on someone/thing that was overrated (Jeter! Clooney!) or underrated (John Adams! Eli Manning!). Notice how the Underrated guys need their full name spelled out?

Which brings us to the matter of Tim Tebow. I had a Tebow column halfway written on December 11, after the Broncos defeated the Bears. Tebow was riding high: the Broncos had won 7 of 8, his passing yards had increased 5 straight games, his TD-to-INT ratio was 8-1, and his critics were cowering in the corner. It was time to strike.

But alas, on December 12th I was diagnosed with a detached retina, and two days later had surgery. While I was recovering Tebow fell hard. The Broncos got crushed by the Patriots, trampled by the Bills, and in week 17, an important game against the Chiefs to guarantee a playoff spot, Tebow put up the following line:

6 for 22, 60 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 interception.

The Broncos scored 3 points and needed the Raiders to lose in order to backdoor the playoffs. I don't care how much you mistrust stats: that is some seriously crappy, unclutch, non-winning football. And as anyone who saw the game will attest, it wasn't just a statistical nightmare; it was an avert-your-eyes horror show.

So the moment had passed. I couldn't pile on then.

But now Timmy's back! He had his best game as a pro Sunday. It had the usual Tebow dramatics but with a twist: big passing numbers! He even broke John Elway's Broncos' record for playoff yards. So, it's time for me to enter the fray.

Now let me stipulate a few things first:

1. I like Tim Tebow. He seems like a genuinely good guy in a sports world filled with bad guys.

2. I like the Tebow story. It is like every sports movie every made - the underdog who is told he can't do it but pulls it off in dramatic fashion.

3. I especially liked the fact that Tebow beat Ben Roethlisberger, who is, let's say, not a good guy.

Finally, he has many qualities that are useful in an NFL quarterback. Useful, but not necessary. For example:

1. He is big and strong, which is useful but not necessary (see Drew Brees).
2. He is very good at running the ball, which is useful but not necessary (see Peyton Manning)
3. He is fiery and animated, which is useful but not necessary (see Eli Manning).
4. He had great success in college, which is useful but not necessary (see Tom Brady).
5. He is a morally upright person, which is useful but not necessary (see Ben Roethlisberger).

Those five quarterbacks won 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls. All but the injured Peyton made the playoffs this year, as usual. And while all of them are different, they share one thing in common: they are really really good at throwing a football.

And that's my problem with the Tebow Debate. It's become, like most sports arguments, a litmus test on Stats vs. Winning*.

* And unlike most sports arguments, a litmus test on religion. But I'm not going there. For that, I recommend this piece by Fran Tarkenton in today's Wall Street Journal.

But all of this ignores the most important question: Can a quarterback have long-term success iin today's NFL if he can't throw well? And Tim Tebow cannot throw well:

• His YPA (yards per attempt) is 6.4, 29th in the league behind, well, pretty much everyone but Curtis Painter. YPA is arguably the single most important passing stat.
• His completion % is 46.5%, 34th among the 34 QBs who threw enough passes to qualify. He is the only QB in the league under 50%.
• TD % is 4.4 (meaning, he throws TDs on 4.4% of his passes). Not bad, at 13th in the league, but still beyond such stalwarts as Christian Ponder, Mark Sanchez, and Matt Moore
• His INT% is solid. At 2.2 he is 9th in the league.
• But that is offset by his QB rating. At 29th, he is behind Colt McCoy, among other mediocrities. QB rating measures efficiency and loves a low INT %. But the rest of Tebow's game is so horrendous, the paucity of picks doesn't help much.
• His Yards Per Game is 34th. The only starter in the league who is lower is Josh Freeman.

And finally, there is Game Winning Drives*. Ah, the fans say, what do you have to say now, Smart Guy? He's tied for the league lead with 6, which is impressive. But there are two problems with that. One is that a guy like Aaron Rodgers has only one - not because he can't do it, but because he's so damn good all day long he generally spends his final drive taking a knee.

* Definition: An offensive scoring drive in the 4th quarter or OT that puts a team ahead for the last time.

But the other is this: do you know who has been better than Tim Tebow at game winning drives? Go ahead, I'll give you a minute. No, it's not Eli Manning, who also has 6 but was the starter in more games. It's not Alex Smith, with 5, though he was good, too. Drew Brees? Good guess, but he only had 4.

No, the best comeback quarterback in football this year was John Skelton. Casual fans don't even know who he is, but football fans know he took over the Cardinals' starting job in November. He played in 8 games for the Cards this year, starting 7 - and had 5 game-winning comebacks. 5 comebacks in 8 games? That's amazing...but something tells me he won't be on the cover of Madden next year.

Finally, the last worrisome thing for those who picture a Tebow plaque at Canton someday...

Tim Tebow isn't playing in the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, or even the first decade of this century. He's playing at time when explosive passing attacks have taken over the sport. You've seen all the stats elsewhere, but this paragraph by Gregg Easterbrook captures well what a passing league the NFL is right now:

It's the year of offensive stat-a-rama throughout the NFL. There have been five 5,000-yard passing seasons in NFL history; three of them were this year. Drew Brees and Tom Brady both eclipsed the previous passing yards record in the same season. Records were set for passer rating, completion percentage and team yards from scrimmage. In the regular season, NFL teams averaged 235 gross passing yards per game, surpassing the previous high of 221 in 1995 and way above the 1971 average of 156 yards. Three of the top five rushing teams missed the playoffs while all the top five passing teams made the postseason. Detroit just gained a spectacular 882 yards passing in two games over six days -- and lost both because opponents gained 928 yards passing. The Packers and Patriots, with the league's lowest-rated defenses, just used scoreboard-spinning to win the conference top seeds. The league's No. 1 defense, the Pittsburgh Steelers, is already out of the playoffs, torched by Denver. In this year of offensive stat-a-rama, even a sputtering offense trumped the best defense!

I like Tim Tebow. It's a truly great sports story. And I'll be rooting for him this weekend against Patriots.

But enjoy the show now. This is the modern NFL, where a quarterback has to be able to consistently throw balls into very tight spots. And that is the one thing Tim Tebow cannot do.

Timeless Truths

A few people have asked me why I haven't written about Penn State. They figured this topic was perfect for FreeTime.

I haven't written about Penn State because I have nothing original to say. In fact, I never have anything original to say about crimes of the moment. Natalee Holloway, Caylee Anthony, even O.J. Stories like these have played out millions of times in human history, and all the human foibles on display have been demonstrated by novelists, poets, playwrights, philosophers, theologians and (believe it or not) politicians for thousands of years. I can add nothing to them that hasn't already been said by Shakespeare or Plato or Jefferson.

So rather than add my two cents, I'll merely quote one of the greatest political philosophers, Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

The No-Skip Songs (Part 3)

And finally, Part 3...(go here for Part 1 and Part 2)

But before I go on, since Part 2 was posted Mrs. Keatang has challenged the notion of this list.

"So it's a list of your favorite songs," she said.

"Not exactly," I replied. "Double Trouble isn't my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd song. It's Gimme Three Steps or The Ballad of Curtis Loew or live Freebird. They are all better songs."

"So, then, it's a list of your favorite songs right now."

"Well, no," I stammered, "these are songs I don't skip."

"You don't skip them because you're sick of those other songs, so these really are your favorite songs."

"Um, not exactly..."

"So you're saying, you skip songs you prefer in order to listen to songs you don't like as much."

"That's not what I'm saying!"

"This list makes no sense," she concluded.

And I have to admit, she's probably right. On to Part 3!

Yellow Ledbetter, Pearl Jam, Jeremy [US]

This tune (which probably isn't as good as Black or Even Flow or Alive) fits into two interesting categories: great songs that never made it onto an album (it's an outtake from Ten), and songs that sound meaningful and profound even though you have no idea what the vocalist* is saying.

* Speaking of Mrs. Keatang, Eddie Vedder is on her Top Five To Do list (a list that shrank with the passing of Heath Ledger). I'd feel jealous but as I said in Part 1 I don't experience jealousy.  Plus, I admire her good taste.

Anyway, I've purposely avoided looking up the lyrics for this song because, as an old college friend said about R.E.M. back in 1985, "I like them because you can make up your own lyrics."

How Blue Can You Get?, B.B. King, Live in Cook County Jail

If you were to create the perfect blues song, you might start with a guitar intro that prowls and pounces like a tiger. Mix in a vocal performance packed with pathos and bravado. Sprinkle in a wicked sense of humor. And of course it would have to be live, ideally in a prison yard.

B.B. packs all of that into this masterpiece.

Mr. Bojangles, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy

Pop music is great at evoking feeling, but terrible at creating characters. How much do we really know about Angie, Barbara Ann, and Sweet Caroline - indeed, every woman who has had a pop song named for her? They are ciphers who exist merely to explain how they make the narrator feel.

Mr. Bojangles is as quirky as any of the menagerie that passes through a Bob Dylan song, but as fully realized a character as you're going to find in a four minute song. And this cover by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band gets me every time.

Levon, Elton John, Madman Across the Water

If pop music is bad at character, it really sucks at plot. Which is understandable, given space limitations.

In this song, it's as if Bernie Taupin said to himself, hmm, I wonder how much of a sprawling family saga I can pack into a few verses. We learn a surprising amount about three generations of Tostigs.

But that's not why I love this song. I love it for the same reason Levon calls his child Jesus: because I like the sound of it.

Landslide, Dixie Chicks, Home

This Fleetwood Mac cover is the first song in Part 3 I'm a little embarrassed about.

First of all, I have no actual Fleetwood Mac songs on this list, and I love Fleetwood Mac, or at least I love the album Rumours. So how did this cover of a non-Rumours song get on here, but no actual Mac recordings?

Second, my favorite Mac* songs are the Lindsey Buckingham tunes, not the Stevie Nicks ones, so how did a cover of a Stevie Nicks song get on here?

* Is there a more curiously named band than Fleetwood Mac? For any song, one of three people - Buckingham, Nicks, or Christie McVie - is the frontman of the band, singing a song of their own composition. So naturally the band is named after the other two guys.

Third, while I think anyone - including dopey actors, singers and other celebrities - can make any kind of political statement wherever and whenever they want, it irritates the hell out of me when they act like martyrs because some people are pissed off about it. In Soviet Russia, when you spoke truth to power you got sent to the Gulag Archipelago; in America you get put on the cover of Rolling Stone with no clothes and treated like an (anti) war hero.

And finally, I couldn't tell you a single other Dixie Chicks songs.

Still, I don't skip this song, and it makes me wonder why I don't actively seek out more country music with great harmonizing. I was kind of blown away by Lady Antebellum's National Anthem during the Jets-Cowboys 9/11 game. Maybe I should get a record from them...

Hey Hey What Can I Do, Led Zeppelin, B-side of Immigrant Song

Like Yellow Ledbetter, this song was deemed unworthy of inclusion on an album. But it made the FreeTime No Skip list!

As I wrote in Part 2 (or was it Part 1? I've dragged this thing on for months...) I don't have much use for The Who or Led Zeppelin anymore. But then this song doesn't contain most of the things that people associate with Zep; there is no pounding Bonham drums, no Page guitar solos, no references to Lord of the Rings.

It's just a lovely little ditty about the perils of loving a drunken slut.

Finnegan's Wake, Tommy Makem & the Clancy Brothers, Irish Drinking Songs

This song has everything for me: nostalgia (my parents used to sing it in the car); a literary heritage (James Joyce based his novel of the same name on this Dublin street ballad); a raucous sense of humor (it's about an Irish wake with, as Tommy Makem says in this live introduction to the song, "dancing, drinking, fighting, everything"); and some great Irish slang (Shilellegh law, welt the floor). Oh, and it's just a blast to listen to.

The Boy in the Bubble, Paul Simon, Graceland

If I compiled a list of songs I wish I'd written, this would certainly be on it.

Simon has always been the most exquisite of lyricists; you'd never catch him trying to rhyme "Texas" with "facts is". This is not always a plus, as sometimes sloppiness can be a good thing in music. But this song is a lyrical gem.

1952 Vincent Black Lightning, Richard Thompson, Rumour & Sigh

I'm not the sort of person who laments the fact that our culture celebrates trash, while some of our greatest artists labor in obscurity. It makes sense that James Patterson sells more novels than Jonathan Franzen. Kids should prefer Spongebob to Stravinsky.

But the obscurity of Thompson is, if not a crime, a cultural misdemeanor. His guitar playing alone should have put him among rock royalty, and songs like this should be played on the Memorial Day 500 Best Songs of All Time marathons.

Any number of Thompson tunes could be on here but this one about a boy, a girl, and a motorcycle, gets the nod.

St. Dominic's Preview, Van Morrison, St. Dominic's Preview

Despite what I said earlier about Tom Petty, Van Morrison would be my desert-island artist. I don't think there's a performer with a greater mix of lyrical and vocal virtuosity, nor one who travels across genres as effortlessly as Van Morrison. Mrs. Keatang turned me on to this song years ago, and it has remained a favorite, though I can't quite state why. It's an impressionistic song with a lot of imagery adding up to....well, I'm not quite sure. (In fact, more than any other song I've ever googled for lyrics, there is little agreement on some of the lines.)

But Van infuses the vocal performance with such meaning that I end up singing along to such lyrics as "Safeway supermarkets in the rain" and "Edith Piaf's soul" as if I know what he means, when in fact I have no idea.

Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright, Shrek soundtrack

There are a surprising amount of covers on this list. And there have been some embarrassing songs on this list. So what better way to wrap it up than a song from kids movie soundtrack that has become the most over-covered song on the planet?

Written by Leonard Cohen, over 200 versions of this song have been recorded, and it's nearly been destroyed by its overuse in movies and television. But this version by Wainwright, to a simple piano arrangement, is nearly a perfect song.

***

That's it, the FreeTime No-Skip Song list. If the artists on my iPod could actually talk, I'm sure there'd be bitching and moaning. I can almost picture Bob Dylan's shocked disgust ("Landslide? The Dixie Chicks' Landslide?"). Gregg Allman is mournfully playing the organ. Eddie Van Halen is whaling on his guitar, trying to capture my attention. Tom Waits is lighting a cigarette, telling me to fock off. Wilco's thinking, hey, I thought we had a good thing going. R.E.M. and U2 think the whole thing is a farce.

Hey hey, what can I say?

Mann Down

The Latest Twist in Manning-Brady Rivalry

Quarterbacks, more than any other athlete performing any other task, rely on their teammates.

Up to half a dozen man-mountains block for them. Freakishly large-handed speed demons catch the passes thrown by them. QBs hand the ball off to quick and powerful men who run for them - which helps make it easier for them to throw. They are guided by a team of brilliant workaholics who come up with detailed and intricate plans, who literally write books about what quarterbacks should do.

I'm not saying quarterback is an easy job. In fact, it's arguably the hardest job in the world to excel at. Think about it: at any given point in time, there's only about 15 people on the planet who are doing a good job as an NFL quarterback. Are there more than 15 good neurosurgeons in the world? Does the 16th best particle physicist on the planet perform at a higher level than Joe Flacco? Could you find twenty to thirty outstanding nuclear submarine captains in a pinch?* The answer to all of these questions is yes.

* There are several hundred nuclear submarines in the world. I'm thinking the 16th best captain is pretty damn good.

The challenge is separating a quarterback's greatness from all those other factors. What if, for example, Joe Montana was drafted two picks earlier in the 1979 draft, by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Instead of the brilliant Bill Walsh, he would've inherited John McKay as head coach. His premiere wide receiver in the 80's would have been Kevin House rather than Jerry Rice. The average defensive rank of his team from 1980-1989 would have been 20th rather than 7th*. And he would've had to wear those ridiculous orange uniforms.

* The Niner defense was genuinely great in the 80's, not merely a nice complement to a great offense. Their rank in Points Allowed from 1981 to 1989 was: 2, 23, 4, 1, 2, 3, 3, 8, 3.

What kind of career would Joe Montana have had if he'd been picked by the Bucs? I should add that I did not choose the Buccaneers by random. I chose them because in the mid-80's Steve Young spent a couple of seasons as the Tampa quarterback. It did not go well. He won 3 games, threw twice as many interceptions as touchdown passes, completed 52% of his passes, and looked ridiculous in that orange uniform.

In 1992, however, he replaced Joe Montana and had five brilliant seasons, one of the great runs in quarterback history. He got behind the wheel of that 49er sports car and drove it faster than Montana.

All of these variables - head coach, receiving corps, defense, running game - make it therefore very difficult to truly judge the value of a quarterback, and nearly impossible to conduct something close to a controlled experiment.

But something very close to that is being performed in Indianapolis right now.

Painting a Picture

A while back, I made the case that Tom Brady-Peyton Manning was the best "Who's Better?" debate in sports history. My argument went like this:

From 2001-2006 Brady-Manning followed the usual script of great player debates. Like Wilt-Russell, Marino-Montana, and ARod-Jeter, one player put up the monster stats and one player put on the rings.

But in 2006-2007, the players reversed roles. In 2006 Manning became Brady. The Colts beat the Patriots multiple times, including a thrilling comeback victory in the 06 AFC Championship game. The Colts went on to win the Super Bowl and Manning was crowned Super Bowl MVP.

More shockingly, in 2007 Brady became Manning. A guy who had been an efficient 3500 yards/25 TD guy suddenly went off for 4800 yards and 50 TDs. After missing all of 2008, Brady has continued as a brilliant quarterback, an elite passer in the NFL. (And to complete his transformation into early 2000s Manning, he stopped winning Super Bowls.)

A handful of rings and elite passing statistics? It's never been done before. Add in the fact that Manning plays in a dome and Brady in the New England winter? As a longtime Manning supporter, I was forced to admit that Brady just might be the better quarterback.

But here's where we come to our controlled experiment. In 2008 Tom Brady got hurt in Week 1 and lost the season. A kid named Matt Cassel, who literally had not started a game at quarterback since he was in high school, got under center. (In fact, he is the only QB in league history to start an NFL game having never started one in college).

How'd he do? The Patriots went 11-5 and had the 5th ranked offense in the NFL. Cassel threw for 3700 yards and 21 TDs with a 63% completion rate. Not bad, huh?

This year, Peyton Manning is out for the season. Curtis Painter is under center for the Indianapolis Colts. Painter has a much more impressive resume than Cassel had. As a sophomore at Purdue, he set the Big 10 passing record. He broke a bunch of Drew Brees' records at Purdue, and would have broken more if not for an injury Senior year.

Painter hasn't been terrible. He's only thrown one interception, and his completion rate and QB rating are both very respectable. He's actually 3rd in the league in Net Yards per Pass Attempt, behind Brady and Rogers.

But the Colts are ranked 31st in total offense, 27th in points scored. And they're 0-6. Since Manning's second season, the Colts have won 10 games or more every year but one*. This year, they've already lost 6.

* That one was 2001 when they went 6-10. It wasn't Manning's fault - the Colts had the #2 offense in the league in 2001. But as has often been the case in Manning's career, he had a bad defense. Colts were ranked 31st in Points Allowed in 2001. The average rank of Colt D since 1998 is 16th in the league. In 2006, Manning won the Super Bowl with a defense ranked 23rd.

Remove Brady from the Patriots' offense and it slows down. Remove Manning from the Colts' offense and it comes skidding to a halt.

It's another interesting twist in the greatest individual "Who's Better?" debate ever.

The Sun Fled

Another Remembrance of September 11

9/11/11

I'm not sure you've heard, but the tenth anniversary of September 11th is today.

Well, of course, you've heard. Every magazine has cover stories on it. Sporting events from the U.S. Open to our local rec soccer league are honoring the day. Radio stations are going DJ-free for the weekend. And of course, the politicians will wrap themselves in flags and blow long-winded speeches and get misty-eyed all day.

I feel a little guilty about this, but I find it a bit maudlin at best and exploitative at worst. The maudlin exploitation will reach its heights tonight when two of my least favorite football teams, the Cowboys and Jets, play the first New York football game of the season. The NFL, masters of patriotic flair, will make the event seem more American than the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

So I was reluctant to add my voice to the rivers of rhetoric flowing this weekend. But I actually was in Manhattan that day, as I've been in Manhattan most of my working days for 23 years. And I thought, before I forget, I should record my memories of that day, and the weeks after.

9/11/01

In September of 2011, I was working at a publishing company on 21st Street, near the Flatiron Building. But Tuesday the 11th found me farther uptown, on Park in the 30's, at an offsite meeting.

As I walked into an unfamiliar office building on Park Avenue, my first contact with the news came like many others. The front desk guys had just heard reports that a plane hit one of the Twin Towers. We assumed it was a small plane, assumed it was an accident, and went up to our meeting.

But by mid-morning our mobile phones were buzzing and we knew it was bigger. My friends from work and I found a conference room with a television and started watching. Like everyone else, we watched the towers fall...over and over and over. The repetition should have been numbing, but it wasn't - each time it had the same shock value.

After an hour we left for a pub, Rosie O'Grady's, on 46th Street and 7th Avenue. Why a pub? Partly because my bro-in-law the Rock Star was there and partly because we felt trapped and isolated in this unfamiliar office building and wanted to be among other people.

As we came out into the street on Park Avenue the scene stunned us. The city was effectively shut down - no cars were moving, police were everywhere. Pedestrians roamed the street. I looked left - downtown - and was further stunned by the volume of smoke rising from lower Manhattan. I was a good 3 miles North of the Trade Center but the vast haze of smoke seemed much closer.

At this point, we go into a bit of an information void. The bar was packed and loud and it was impossible to hear the television. Plus, mobile service in the city was sketchy at this point, further cutting off communication with the outside world. We were so close to Ground Zero we could see it but knew less of what was happening than someone watching Tom Brokaw on their couch in Tacoma.

I had two close friends working downtown in those days. One, Gombo*, we found quickly - he never made it past the Lincoln Tunnel on his way to work. The other took much longer to find - he was among the crowds who walked home across the Brooklyn Bridge.

* Gombo had a lot of associates who worked in the Towers and made an observation few have made since then. The NFL season opened the night before, with a Monday night game between the Broncos and the defending NFC champs Giants. The game was close late - it was tied mid-way through the 3rd quarter - which meant that many Giants fans were up much later the night before than they normally would be on a Monday night. Which meant they got a later train the next day. Which meant when the planes hit the towers at 8:46am and 9:03am, a lot of guys who normally have been at their desks at the time were still making their way to work.

Rumors were that the bridges and tunnels were shut down but we decided to hop in the Rock Star's car and head home. There was surprisingly little traffic on the West Side highway, but many of the cars were covered with soot. We got up to the George Washington Bridge and - this part's a little strange - we crossed right over. Strange because everyone we've talked to since said the bridges and tunnels were closed all day.

The most spectacular view of the Manhattan skyline are from New Jersey. As we headed South on the eastern spur of the New Jersey Turnpike, lower Manhattan was on our left. I've lived in the New York area my entire life and know the skyline well. But here was lower Manhattan, denuded of its most familiar landmarks, and in their place a vast cyclone of smoke rising up and drifting right out the island tip and over the Statue of Liberty. Our car was silent.

Eventually I got home to my wife and family. My kids were 4 and 1 and had no idea what happened. My wife and I hugged for a long while, and watched TV till the early morning hours.

The worrying wasn't over, though. My father, at the time a 61 year-old volunteer firefighter, joined the armies of volunteers headed downtown to help. He spent the evening at Shea Stadium, mobilized with so many others hoping to help. But of course, he never made it to Ground Zero. There was nobody left to save.

After 9/11

I stayed home on the 12th and returned to the city on Thursday the 13th. My office was on 21st and 5th and the smoke was still clearly seen from our corner, and would be for weeks to come. The presiding mood in the city was paranoia. That day I had a box with a poster in it, and walking the streets I felt people looking at the box, wondering what kind of weapon I had in there.

I was fortunate to not lose anyone close in the attacks, but in the coming months it was astonishing how many deaths we heard about. The owner of our local pizzeria lost his wife. A buddy from our pick-up hoops game's aunt was killed. My cousin Kevin, FDNY, lost many friends, including his closest. Another firefighter, Danny Marshall*, who went to elementary school with my wife, died along with 11 others from his firehouse.

* The story of that house, Engine 40, Ladder 5, is told in David Halberstam's book, Firehouse. My wife still has the ornament Danny gave her for Secret Santa 35 years ago, and it goes on our tree every year.

Amazingly, the ripples continue. We've only recently learned that one of my daughter's classmates lost his father that day. His mother was pregnant at the time, and the baby girl born months later is on the cover of People this week.

In the weeks after 9/11 everything was different. I've been an avid reader my whole life, but couldn't read fiction. I read nothing but histories of the Middle East and newspapers and magazines. I couldn't listen to music for weeks, maybe months.

One day in late September I tried to venture downtown with a couple of work friends. We couldn't get close enough to Ground Zero to see much, but instead spent an extraordinarily poignant hour in Union Square Park. USP is on 14th Street, and in the aftermath of 9-11 14th Street was a barrier to downtown - you couldn't go South. Therefore, the park became an impromptu gathering place.

There is an equestrian statue of George Washington in the park, his sword seemingly pointing towards the Trade Center. It was covered in flowers and peaceful graffiti. All around the park signs for Missing People were posted, but what had started as signs had become memorials, with flowers, tributes, and street art. We walked through like it was a large communal wake, reading every tribute, knowing by now these people weren't missing and mourning their deaths.

Things returned to normal, eventually. For me, the symbolic end of the mourning period came with my return to music and fiction. I was in the library looking at novels when I saw a book called A Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin*. I picked it up and read in the front flap that it took place in a mystical version of New York City, near the turn of the 20th Century. Hmm, I thought, that might work for me. New York, but not New York. In the table of contents I saw a chapter titled "White Dog of Afghanistan". That seemed fitting. Finally, I read in the author bio that the author's next book would be called Giuliani: A Soldier of the Great War. That cinched it - I took the book out of the library and lost myself in its pages.

* I became a big fan of Helprin's and consider him the most underated American novelist of my lifetime. The critical acclaim of his earlier works is over-the-top and well-deserved. True fame has eluded him so far, but maybe one day his genius will be recognized.

Finally, there was music. I was driving in my car listening to a CD my friend Jimmy Shin made for me when a Greg Brown song came on called Funky Day. The opening verses suddenly had new meaning for me:

Well the coffee boiled and the sun fled
Ah there's grime on the windows, and the streets are dead
It been Tuesday all week and it's Tuesday again
Today is a Parisian, I am an American.

And I know it ain't, I know I ain't, I hope you ain't
Gonna go away
Ah will ya help me help me help me help me help me help me make it through this funky day
Ah will ya help me help me help me help me baby will ya help me
Ya gotta help me make it through this funky day.

We'd all lived through months of Tuesdays, reliving the moment when the sun fled and the streets were dead. Life returned to normal for those of us lucky enough not to have lost loved ones.

Yes, the commemoration of today may be a bit maudlin and exploitive, but you know, sometimes the bumper stickers are right: We shall never forget.

I Got Thome

The other day, the great Joe Posnanski* wrote a piece about how in sports we don't need a reason to choose what we celebrate, we just need a consensus. In other words, if we all agree that hitting streaks are worth celebrating, we celebrate them. But if we all agree that 10,000 rebounds, a feat achieved by 34 men, isn't such a big deal, we don't celebrate them.

* When I do these little asterisk/italics things, I am using a Posnanski invention called the Posterisk. It is superior to parenthesis and footnotes, and I hope it catches on.

As it turns out, his timing was perfect. Because last night Jim Thome hit his 599th and 600th home runs. It was an astonishingly rare achievement, one of the rarest in sports. Only 8 men in baseball history have accomplished the feat, and the other 7 are baseball legends, admitted steroid users, or both.

And yet...the world yawned. There will be no HBO special commemorating his chase for 600. His achievement did not pass the Lucille Test. Few people marveled at the way he achieved it, being the first man to hit back-to-back jacks to get to a six-pack.

Most importantly, ESPN's SportsCenter this morning followed up the highlight of this game with a segment titled "Hall of Famer?" The report, by Tim Kurkjian, concluded he was a Hall of Famer. But that's quite a question mark. 600 homers does not punch your ticket to the Hall.

This is in stark contrast to the celebration around Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit. 3,000 hits is a much more common achievement. 28 guys have gotten to that level.*

* In a related note, sometime this September Clinton Portis will become the 26th NFL player to rush for 10,000 yards. Will anyone care?

In fact one can argue Thome has been a better player than Jeter. He's almost certainly a better hitter. He got to his 600th homer with far fewer (around 900) plate appearances than Jeter needed for 3000. He has a lower batting average (.312 to .277), but a higher On-Base Percentage (.403 to .383) and a much higher slugging % (.557 to .449).

Of course, Jeter was a far superior fielder and a much better base runner (335 stolen bases to 19). The Captain was not quite the October superhero people think he was, but he was a very good post-season player, whereas Thome wasn't. Most importantly, Jeter is the rare modern athlete who has spent his entire career with one team, so his connection to that fan base is greater, certainly, than Thome is to Minnesota, or even Cleveland.

The point here isn't to bash Jeter, who deserves the credit he received. It's to wonder why Thome's far rarer achievement is virtually ignored.

It's not because he's a bad guy - in fact by all accounts he's a great guy. According to Joe Pos, he's won the Clemente Award and the Gehrig Award. He's been voted the nicest guy in baseball by his peers. And it has something to do with the fact that homers have been devalued in our post-Bonds era.

But still...there's a good chance that in about 8 or 9 years, Jeter will be cruising to Cooperstown as a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And Jim Thome might be on his 3rd year trying to get in. Will he be joining him?

Note:

About the name of this post...in 1992 my friends and I founded the Madisox Fantasy Baseball League. (Odd Couple fans know the name comes from an episode involving television's greatest sportswriter). That first year, well, the details are hazy but my buddy Costello drafted this Indians prospect named Jim Thome. Later, somebody tried to draft Thome but Costello, looking over his roster, said, "No, I got Thome. I definitely got Thome." Only he pronounced it with a Th- sound, rhyming with home. Anyway, "I got Thome" is one of the catchphrases of our league, and has been repeated at every draft since.

The No-Skip Songs (Part 2)

In Part 1 of the No-Skip Songs, I discussed how technology has changed the way we listen to music. As we've evolved from LPs to CDs to Walkmans to MP3 players, our ability to skip songs has multiplied. And now, in my mid-40's, I hit the Skip button on my iPod a lot. Either technology or age has made me a fidgety, impatient listener.

The No-Skip songs are tunes that consistently hold my attention, and I'm often surprised at which ones. Some I knew as a teen, but didn't consider a favorite then. Some are by artists I barely know. Some of my favorite artists are not represented (close friends will be shocked by the absence of Bob Dylan). But for whatever reasons, right now, these are (some of) my No Skip Songs.

Why 21 songs? My original No Skip playlist was 45 songs. But I cut it down to 21 - specifically to 80 MB - so that it would perfectly form a CD mix. Here we go, in no particular order:

Solsbury Hill [live], Peter Gabriel, Plays Live

There's a handful of songs on this list that I may have liked as a teen, but I get as an adult. We reach crossroads in our life, moments of confusion, and there's nothing purer than the moment of clarity when suddenly we know the right direction. May eagles fly into all our hilltop reveries and show us the way home.

I think that's why Solsbury Hill works better as a live song. Great singers are actors, too, and you can hear the yearning in Gabriel's vocals. He's going home.

Hey Jealousy, Gin Blossoms, New Miserable Experience

Seriously, I have no idea how this song got here. I couldn't name another Gin Blossoms song and have never owned a Gin Blossoms album.

As for the feeling of jealousy, it is completely alien to me. I like it when other guys check out my wife. Damn right, she's with me. Give me Hamlet and Macbeth over Othello any day. But what can I tell you - this song comes on, I ain't skipping.

Redemption Song (live in Pittsburgh), Bob Marley, Songs of Freedom

Recorded shortly before his death, this live version gets me before it even starts. There's a little guitar intro, a joyous shout from Bob, and then, "Yes, this little song is called old pirates, you know, redemption song".

Knowing his body is already racked with the cancer that will get him soon makes the hopeful vocals more poignant.

Tumbling Dice, The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St.

The Stones in general hold up for me. I have no use for The Who anymore and little use for Zeppelin, or most of the big classic rock bands of my youth. There will always be a place in my heart for them but they are almost always skipped.

But a bunch of Stones song pass the Skip Test. Angie, Gimme Shelter, Can't You Hear Me Knocking. On a larger No-Skip list, they'd be well-represented. In fact, Dice only only edged Knocking on this list because it's shorter, and fit in my 80 MB.

Cry Love, John Hiatt, Walk On

Twenty years ago, an acquaintance made me a mix that changed my listening habits. On one tape I was introduced to Graham Parker, A Tribe Called Quest, and a host of other songs and artists I didn't know.

One of those guys was John Hiatt, and this song provided the ultimate "Who is this guy?" moment. I've since dug deeper into Hiatt, but this remains my favorite.

Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen, Live 1975-1985

The only song on this list to crack the Top 100 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of Top 500 Songs of All Time (#86). The album Born to Run has the famous cover shot of a guitar-slung Boss and a sax-blowing Big Man. But this live version from The Boss's 1975 shows at The Bottom Line in New York is a reminder that Springsteen's classic 1975 record was drenched in piano. I wonder if E Street keyboardist Roy Bittan, who was equally spectacular on Dire Straits' Making Movies, is annoyed at that album cover.

Double Trouble, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gimme Back My Bullets

If you have any interest in the depths of my teen obsession with Skynyrd, click here. Suffice to say, I was a hard-core fan. I knew every song on every album, knew the band lineup changes, had the original Street Survivors LP (real fans know what I'm talking about)

But if you asked me in 1981 to name my favorite Skynyrd songs, I'm not sure this would have made the Top 10. In fact, the Bullets album in general spent the least time on my roundtable. But for some reason now, when I hear that great opening guitar intro, I'm hooked.

What'd I Say, Pt. 1 & 2,Ray Charles, Rhino Hi-Five
I think my introduction to Ray Charles was through the Columbia House record club. You old folks remember - 13 albums for a penny. Back before Napster changed everything, the closest you can get to music piracy was joining, quitting, and re-joining Columbia House. And with so many albums to choose from, I'd start picking some old guys with whom I was only vaguely familiar.

Well, Ray Charles' Greatest Hits blew me away. Unchain My Heart became a staple on all my mixes. But somehow I missed this song until the movie Ray, and it assumed an immediate place on my No-Skip list. It's still there.

Even the Losers, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Damn the Torpedoes

If you ask me who my favorite artist is, I'd probably say Bob Dylan or Van Morrison. Favorite band? The Beatles. But if push came to shove - if I was really being placed on the metaphorical desert island and can only choose the collected works of one artist, I just may choose Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Oh, I know, he doesn't have the street grandeur of the Boss or the ragged poetry of Dylan or the lyric mysticism of Van or the revolutionary inventiveness of the Beatles. But damn it, he has a million No Skip songs. I could've chosen any of a dozen, but threw this one on there because hey, even the losers get lucky sometimes.

Rhymes and Reasons, John Denver, Greatest Hits
That's right, John Denver. You got a problem with that? Seriously, put on this song, think about 9/11, and try to skip it.

And Your Bird Can Sing, The Beatles, Revolver
I know what you're thinking. Hey Jude. Let It Be. A Day in the Life. Yesterday. How the heck did this fairly obscure middle-period song get on the No-Skip list?

I'm not sure exactly. But try this on for size: in August 1965, the Beatles released Help! Four months later they released Rubber Soul. And nine months after that, Revolver. 12 months, 3 classic albums. Oh, and ten months after that, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, often considered the greatest rock album ever made.

Compare that to U2, the undisputed rock kings of the 80's. It took them 7 years to release 4 albums (Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, Rattle & Hum and Achtung Baby). Or Bruce Springsteen, who spent 8 years on Born to Run, Darkness, The River and Nebraska.

Of course, greatness isn't measured in number of albums. But the Beatles' albums had 12 - 14 songs on each one, and little gems like Bird are scattered throughout. For some reason, this song represents for me the most extraordinary creative burst of my lifetime, musical or otherwise. Or maybe it's just a cool ditty.

Okay, that's enough for now. Part 3 with ten more songs will be out in less time than it takes an 80s rock star to produce a masterpiece.

Congratulations, Mr. Jeter

I have to admit that even I, a card-carrying Yankee hater and full-fledged member of the "Jeter is Overrated Club", got a kick out of that 5-for-5, dinger for 3k, game-winning RBI performance on Saturday.

It's true that if Michael Kay said "the Captain" one more time, with that mix of teen-girl breathlessness and religious awe that one associates with lunatic cult members, I would have thrown my beer at the television screen.

But at the end of the day, I am a) a reader and writer who loves a great story, and that was an amazing story, and b) a baseball fan who revels in the statistical oddities of the sport. And the idea that Derek Jeter, who had hit a homer in precisely 1 of the previous 132 Yankee games (including post-season) would homer for his 3000th hit, is a statistical oddity of the highest order. Toss in 4 other hits and a game-winning RBI, and you have one of the most improbable days in baseball history. What baseball fan wouldn't love that?

(You buying any of this?)

Anyway, in honor of 3000, I'm linking to my piece entitled Chasing Tris Speaker, in which I make some attempt to estimate Jeter's career hit totals, and explain how important they are to his legacy. The short version is this: Jeter needs 516 hits to catch and pass Speaker, which would put him in the Top 5 all time. That's 171 hits over 3 full seasons, meaning he'd need to stay healthy and reasonably productive through his current contract, and get at least one more season in the bigs.

The No-Skip Songs (Part 1)

[This started out as an intro to a list of favorite songs. But the intro grew into a post of its own, so now it's Part 1 of a 3-part piece.]

Music listening has gone through 5 technology phases, sometimes overlapping:

1) Live music (400,000 BC - today)

2) Vinyl records (early 1900s - 1980's)

3) Walkman/Cassettes (1960's - 1980's)

4) Compact Discs (1980's - 2000's)

5) MP3 players (2003-today)

This is a simplification, of course. I skipped 8-track players because, well, they were 8-track players. I've ignored the role of radio and its evolution from AM to FM to satellite to internet. And I'm just winging it on the 400,000 BC thing, on the assumption some early homo sapiens banged some rocks together and liked how it sounded.

My point is this: as a 45 year-old who first got into music in the late-70's, I'm at the perfect age to have experienced every phase of music listening.

I've gone to many concerts, from my first (The Marshall Tucker Band, Nassau Coliseum, October 1981) to my most recent (Eddie Vedder, The Beacon, 3 nights ago).

As a 13-year-old I bought Pink Floyd's The Wall*, tore the shrink-wrap off the LP, put on Disc 1-Side 1-Track 1 (In the Flesh) and listened to the whole album, song by song. I read the liner notes, followed along with the lyrics, and agreed with Rogers Waters that I didn't need no education.

Throughout the 80's I made mixtapes, an arduous process that I took very seriously. I plotted the list of songs, the segues, the length - and then kept two fingers on the record button while I gently laid the needle onto the right song. I named the mixes, and carefully wrote the songs on the case. My college roommates would marvel that I managed my mixtapes with such precision, but couldn't be bothered to pair my socks after (finally) doing laundry.

I'd listen to these tapes over and over, usually on my Walkman. To this day, when I hear the end of REM's Pretty Persuasion, I expect it to be followed by America's Sister Golden Hair Surprise, and that to be followed by the opening drums of Train in Vain by The Clash. Because that's the order they appeared on my very popular Random Hour Mix*.

* This was before I started coining clever names for mixes, such as "Both Kinds" for a country mix. Get it?

And then CDs came. My college housemate, OD, had one of the first CD players on campus, and a modest collection. This was exciting stuff - if for no other reason than it made the making of mixtapes much easier. But the other reason was sound. I know there's this core group of audiophiles who think vinyl is superior, but not my vinyl. My soon-to-be-retired record collection in the late 80's was scratchy, dusty, and sounded like sand in a tuna can.

And now, finally, we get to the real point of this post. In addition to the superior sound, the CD player offered superior navigation. Suddenly, I found myself skipping songs. It was so easy - one button and I can skip right past a song I didn't like. No fast-forwarding, no needle-dropping - two presses, and voila - I can skip directly from Only the Losers to Don't Do Me Like That, without having to listen to Shadow of a Doubt and Century City or having to flip the record. CD players not only changed the sound of the music, it changed the songs I chose to listen to.

And now, of course, we're in the MP3 era. I'm a bit of an iPod junkie. I listen while walking my dog, emptying the dishwasher, waiting on a subway platform. I listen on line at the DMV, while walking to lunch, I listen when spreading mulch in my garden.

I have playlists for all occasions and all musical genres. And of course, I have thousands and thousands of songs.

But here's the thing: even though they are my playlists, my songs - all carefully curated - I still skip songs all the time. Even though Shadow of a Doubt and Century City aren't on the iPod, I still find myself skipping Don't Do Me Like That. (But not Even the Losers; that's a No-Skip song).

All of which is a very long-winded way of saying: here is a list of No-Skip songs. These are the songs that, at this stage of my listening life, I rarely skip. They are not the best songs of all time; they aren't even necessarily my favorite songs. But they are, right now, my favorite No-Skip songs.

But you'll have to wait for Part 2 for that...


Click here for Part 2 of The No Skip Songs

There Goes Robert E. Lee

An Obscure Lyric Debate, Resolved

So I went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland recently.

There is much to quibble with about the Hall. The layout of the galleries is uninspired and doesn’t live up to the promise of I.M. Pei’s architecture. Favorite acts of mine (and I assume anyone who visits) are short-changed or ignored (Van Morrison, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tom Petty). And unless you’re a guitar buff, once you’ve seen the first few dozen guitars, they all begin to look alike.

But there is some incredibly cool stuff. John Lennon’s Sgt. Pepper outfit, and his handwritten lyrics for “In My Life”. A letter from Pete Townsend circa 1975, talking about this new kid Eddie Van Halen (“He plays very fast, and what a grin. With a grin like that you don’t need taste”). And Mick Jagger’s tongue-in-cheek permission to Jann Wenner, allowing him to name his new magazine Rolling Stone, in return for favorable press coverage in the years to come.

Bottom line: if you’re in Cleveland, love rock & roll, and have appropriately low expectations, you’ll enjoy it.

But my purpose here is not to do a museum review. My purpose is to share with you the resolution of an incredibly arcane, but meaningful to me, lyric debate. A few years back, I wrote a blog post about how rarely and poorly rock & roll lyrics invoke history, and made a friendly swipe at The Band.

Specifically, I wrote:

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 and see, there goes Robert E. Lee.'"

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

Several readers wrote in to correct me, and I carried on a correspondence with one of them afterwards. Virgil isn’t claiming to see Robert E. Lee, they informed me, but the Robert E. Lee, a steamship that worked the Mississippi immediately after the war.

Internet research on the subject was inconclusive, with differing accounts. A close listen to the song is equally inconclusively, as Levon Helm appears to sing “there goes a Robert E. Lee”. That vowel between goes and Robert could be singer’s shorthand for the, or just a bridge sound.

Well, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, has the answer. Robbie Robertson’s handwritten lyrics are there, and it quite plainly says:

There goes Robert E. Lee

Robbie Robertson, who wrote the song, beautifully evokes the closing days of the Civil War. And he deserves points for surely being the only rock and roller to mention Union cavalry General George Stoneman. But he wasn't talking about a boat.

His character, Virgil Caine, claimed to see Robert E. Lee, the General himself, in the state of Tennessee. And that is simply not possible.

* Hey, I did warn you this post was about an obscure dispute, didn’t I? I was with a colleague from work when I saw the lyrics, and excitedly explained the implications to him. He was smiling at me like I was a lunatic, and trying to convey to the other museum-goers he wasn't with me...