The Bench Jockeys

Why, in fact,… it has.  Japan’s March 11^th earthquake shifted the earth’s axis by 6.5 inches, thereby speeding up the day ever so slightly and causing a slight wobble in the spin of the planet.  Knuckleballers rejoice – your junk should seem a smidge faster and have even more movement.  Scientists maintain that these changes are inconsequential and bear no relevance to the continued existence of earth’s inhabitants;  however, I think otherwise.  First of all, there is just not enough chatter about the impact of this ominous axial move (which in and of itself causes me to pause); and secondly, how could a shift of the earth’s position be anything but bad.  I speculate that this axis shift will hasten baseball’s mutation from a sport dominated by east coast franchises to one where the left coast teams carry the swagger, a trend that began to emerge last year.

Which leads us to this year’s predictions.  The easy pick here is the Red Sox versus the Phillies in the 2011 World Series.  All 44 of ESPN’s pundits forecasted Boston to win the AL East, 39 of them predicted that Boston would represent the AL and 33 of those folks expect the Sox to win the World Series.  That’s really going out on a limb gang.  Even Harpo – the silent Bench Jockey – is of the opinion that we will be watching Lester against Halladay in the Fall Classic.   However, I say, when something seems so obvious, do the opposite.  I like the young arms in Oakland to emerge from a weak AL West and shock the so-called “experts.”  Need I say anything other than the Texas Rangers in 2010?  In the NL, San Francisco is essentially the same team that won in 2010 except now they have some self-confidence in their ability to win.  Half the US doesn’t even remember they won it all last year, and the other half think it was a fluke.  Even in winning, they have a chip on their shoulders. 

So what does this mean for baseball in 2011?  The earthquake series redux.  It just seems like a fitting end.

With 6 games remaining in the regular season, the Chicago Blackhawks cling to the 8^th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, three points ahead of a Dallas Stars team which cleaned Chicago’s collective clocks on St. Paddy’s Day.  Chicago wraps their season up with two games against central division rival Detroit which would surely relish knocking the defending champs out of the playoff picture.  Should the Hawks –  who days after the 2010 Stanley Cup awards ceremony were chopped up like a 2006 Honda Accord –  fall short on their 2011 playoff bid, they will be just the 9^th club since 1915 to fail to qualify for the post-season after winning the Lord Stanley’s Chalice the prior year.  As true competition withers into league parity and dynasties dissolve in favor of bottom lines (even in the formerly immune NHL) it is interesting to note that there has not been a back-to-back Stanley Cup winner since the Red Wings in 1997-98 after decades of multi-year championships by the Canadians, Leafs, Flyers, Isles and Oilers.

It just seemed appropriate that The Bench Jockeys initiated their Blog to coincide with the start of the 2011 MLB Season.  Although there is nothing like debating AL and NL Pennant chances for the upcoming baseball season and analyzing the strengths, but more likely, the weaknesses of current and former ML players, starting this Blog at this time offers The Bench Jockeys the opportunity to assess the potential play-off scenarios in the National Hockey League, as well as the contenders and the pretenders for the Green Jacket, which is  just around the corner on April 7th.  The NBA is just absolute garbage, so you won’t see much from us about that steaming pile, but you will be able to read about the Final Four and VCU’s improbable run.  (We don’t hate basketball, we just hate the NBA.)  Conflicts, oddities and head-shaking actions within NASCAR, soccer, tennis, even the much-maligned PBA, will be served up with cheeky commentary and exploration.

But it’s not just about sports here at The Bench Jockeys, oh no.  We have opinions about any number of subjects.  And along with the sports banter, we intend to mix in a fair share of analysis about the national political scene, potential domestic and global crises, and of course, we fully intend to heckle leaders deserving of derision.  We hope that you will come along for the ride and participate in the discourse.

Oh, and in case you didn’t notice it in the pic above, Barack Obama is a lefty.  Now, there’s a big surprise.

Click the Ferris and Cameron link below, you won’t be sorry…

Ferris and Cameron

According to the ever-insightful Wikipedia… a Bench Jockey is a slang term in American baseball to describe a player, coach or manager with the talent of annoying and distracting opposition players and umpires from his team’s dugout with verbal repartee. The art of riding opposition players enough to unnerve them and perhaps enough to enrage them and provoke a fight is believed to be fast-fading in the 21st century game.  To that we say, “Too bad.”   The Bench Jockeys are bringing it back into vogue.

For all you non-Puck Heads, the Plus-Minus is a Hockey statistic which measures a player’s team goal differential for the time he is on the ice during even-strength and shorthanded play.  The Plus-Minus statistic is increased by one (a “plus”) for each player on the ice for the team scoring a non-powerplay goal and it is decreased by one (a “minus”) for each player on the ice when a non-powerplay goal is scored against the team.   More recently, Read more »

Before you take sides on clear voting favorites Gadhafi and Goodell, The Sporting News is reporting that “it appears that beleaguered Ohio State coach Jim Tressel forwarded e-mails about his players committing NCAA violations despite saying his concerns about the confidentiality of a federal investigation led him to keep the information from his superiors, the Columbus Dispatch reported Friday.

The revelation destroys Tressel’s defense that he didn’t inform Ohio State officials of the e-mails implicating the players because he didn’t want to endanger the federal investigation. Tressel is the subject of an NCAA investigation into whether he committed violations by not telling his bosses about his players’ issues.”

I’ll admit it, I don’t understand cricket. Having read synopses of the rules associated with the sport, the terminology used and the elements of the game, it just does not fit into my sports experience paradigm.   The field makes no sense (oval); the positions make no sense (there’s a player called the “silly” and there is another slot called the “sillier”); and the scoring makes no sense (I can’t even describe that in some pithy way).  See if you can make heads or tails of this………..

I thought not.

However, there is no other arena where sports and politics are seemingly more entwined this Spring than in Mohali, Chandigarh, India as Pakistan squares off against India in the semi-final match of the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup on March 30^th.  For those of you who remain inside your Western Hemisphere boxes, Pakistani militants, from the terrorist group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba targeted Mumbai, India in November 2008 with a coordinated three-day attack during which 164 residents were killed and more than 300 were wounded in shootings and bomb blasts.  The attack is now commonly referred to as “26/11,” – which kind of sounds like our 9/11 –  so this is a big deal in India.  The scars from the 2008 attacks remain fresh in the hearts and minds of the home team, and as a result, this semi-final match takes on ominous quality with the winner of the cricket match advancing to the World Cup finals and the loser of the potential regional conflict facing nuclear annihilation.

For those of us in the West who have never had a formal introduction to cricket (and really, you need more like a graduate level course than an introduction) we assume that cricket is predominately a fancy-man sport played in England and in few of its former territorial islands by well-dressed gents.  However, in both Pakistan and India, cricket is “the game.”  Fans are rabid – so much so that during this year’s ICC Cricket World Cup, violence has erupted prior to less ideologically-ripe matches outside India’s stadiums resulting in a very physical response by Indian police patrols.   Take a look at this guy.   He is not going to be too thrilled if Pakistan advances to the finals.

This week’s Pakistan-India contest may lead to heightened tensions on the sub-continent, or perhaps, this gentleman’s game will yield greater cooperation and understanding between these two nuclear powers.  Well,… that’s probably not going to happen.  But, here’s an instance where both sides would be happy with a geo-political draw.

When a golfer in match play “concedes a putt” to his opponent, he is acknowledging that the putt which his opponent is about to attempt is within a reasonable distance and is deemed holed.  The opponent does not need to strike the ball.  A conceded putt is offered as a gesture of good sportsmanship and has become part of the fabric of golf.  In 1969, at the final hole, in the final pairing of the 1969 Ryder Cup, Jack Nicklaus conceded Tony Jacklin’s knee-knocker of a putt giving England a halve of the entire match (the first tie in Ryder Cup history).  Sure, Nicklaus could have made Jacklin putt his ball, but golf just isn’t that way.

Although the Golden Bear’s concession was a fine illustration of the notion of fair play and integrity, The Bench Jockeys have no intention of following suit.  Content categorized under the Conceded Putz will involve the dubious dealings of self-important and vainglorious sports personalities and global leaders.  We know that spelling is c-o-n-c-e-i-t-e-d; it’s a play on words.  We welcome your suggestions for this topic in the comment box below.

It’s Bartolo Colon vs. Freddy Garcia.  See our Sidebar Faceoff for your thoughts.  Choose wisely.

By a count of 9 to 1 Bartolo Colon outdueled teammate Freddy Garcia to take the team weight title.  However, it was Freddy who secured a spot in the 2011 rotation as the 5th starter whilst Bartolo will be relegated to mop up duties out of  the bullpen.  I think one, if not both of them, will be off of that team like a prom dress by the all-star break. 

Good luck, Yanks.  What were you thinking?

The Horseshoe will feature commentary that is primarily political in nature.  That is not to say that the sometimes-interconnected worlds of politics and sports will not merge within the content of blogs designated with our horseshoe logo, but The Horseshoe will offer readers, whose primary interest is in national and foreign matters, an easy to find bookmark within the body of The Bench Jockeys site. 

So, why The Horseshoe? 

• 20^th Century French philosopher, Jean-Pierre Faye theorized that rather than the far left and the far right being on the opposite ends of a linear political continuum, the ideologies begin to resemble one another as extremes are championed.  Thus, the ideological ends draw closer to one another, and correspondingly, away from the middle.   As we look at a horseshoe, the center is further away from the endpoints than the extremes are from one another.  (That, and a lukewarm cup of coffee is the kind of profound analysis you get with a political science scholarship.)
• The Horseshoe remains the iconic image of my beloved Baltimore Colts which were “re-appropriated” to Indianapolis under cover of night by Bob Irsay 27 years ago this week after the Maryland Senate supported legislation on March 27, 1984 allowing the City of Baltimore to seize the Baltimore Colts under reminent domain.  On March 29th, Irsay, fearing a morning raid on the team’s headquarters, accepted a deal to move the team lock, stock and barrel to Indy, hours before the Maryland House of Delegates concurred with the Senate eminent domain legislation.   (A fitting intersection of sports and politics.) 
• Bench jockeys….jockeys ride horses….horses wear horseshoes…..get it?

What in the wide world of sports are we doing in Libya?   If my pre-Hope history is correct, in 2007, then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama was of the opinion that “the president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”  I suppose one’s opinions may change when you’re the one making the decisions, but Obama’s failure to secure congressional support for this action is not a matter to be taken lightly.

Apparently, the reason the Administration agreed to join in Libya’s fracas was because the “Arab world supported action in Libya.”  Now we learn…. well, maybe, not so much.  According to the Arab League Secretary-General, leadership supported a no-fly zone, not tactical air strikes which could cause civilian casualities.   The question that no one is really considering is:  who is really in this from the Arab World?  Qatar is providing military support and the United Arab Emirates is offering humanitarian aid.  That’s it.  Qatar and the UAE are not necessarily the Arabian version of the Super Friends (that’s a little cartoon reference for those of you who grew up in the 70’s).

Further, President Obama has suggested that this action barely qualifies as a war.  Just like the wealthy girl who gets an invitation to the party because she gives the best presents, the US was apparently included in the Libyan Target Practice E-vite because we had some “unique capabilities.”  Uh,… unique capabilities for starting a war with a Muslim country – which we seem to be pretty good at lately. (I think we are now up to three in the last decade.)  Adm. Mike Mullen has stated, “[We are] leading it now. We’re looking to hand off that leadership in the next few days.”   That’s like playing Old Maid with two other players and you are only holding one card.  At that point, all three players know who is getting stuck with the Old Maid.

So now we have a new operation to fund, “Odyssey Dawn.”  Did they come up with that via some kind of web-based, military operation, random name generator?  What the hell does Odyssey Dawn even mean or convey?   Certainly, it is no more menacing than Operation Delightful Sunrise.  And just to be even-handed, who coined George Bush’s magnum opus, Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Wouldn’t that have been more precisely named, Operation Kill My Father’s Potential Assassinator?

Either way, this is not what an already fractured Congress needs this Spring.

The ACC has 3 teams remaining in the Sweet 16 from its original 4 entries (Duke, UNC, Florida State, and Clemson).  Meanwhile, the media bandwagon’s newly crowned Belles of the Ball – the Big East – on the other hand, have been absymal with 9 of its 11 teams knocked out by the end of the 3rd round.  The only remaining Big East teams are UConn and Marquette – which will need to exhume coaching legend Al McGuire  and his 1977 National Championship mojo to beat the Tar Heels on March 25th.

This is an example of a perfect subject for our category called, The Quick Hook.  We get in, we make our point and we get out.  Just like Czechoslovakia (or Wisconsin).

Content falling within the 4th and Long category will typically concern matters where little hope exists for a successful outcome.   All references to Jimmy Chitwood and “Hooisers” aside, a pre-game analysis of the recent Hampton-Duke game, in which super-frosh, Kyrie Irving, was slated to return to the line-up is a perfect example of a 4th and Long post.  No way, no how, was the Hampton Pirates squad going to keep defending NCAA Tourney Champ Duke from advancing to third round action.  Granted, ocassionally the Davids slay the Goliaths in the NCAAs, but Hampton was in for a long day at the 2:03-mark of the first half down 7- zip in what was essentially a home game for the Blue Devils.

It’s not that different in Libya for Muammar Gadhafi.  Although he is in a dangerous 4th and Long situation, he is not bringing out his punter to kick the ball back to the Benghazi Runnin’ Rebels.  The result should be about the same as in the Hampton-Duke game, a shellacking.