The Most Devastating Plays in Football

Reading TMQ unseasonably late in the week, I ran into Easterbrook’s oft-made argument that the krumble (fumble on a kickoff return recovered by the kicking team) is the most crushing single play in football, giving the opposing offense a free shot at the end zone with tremendous field position while definitively shifting nearly all the psychological momentum (or finishing off the unfortunate victims). The Patriots-Bills opener certainly demonstrated the dramatic game- (and in some cases, season-) changing potential of the krumble. But is it the most debilitating stomach punch in the game? In the spirit of Dan Quisenberry [1], Fifteen Charisma surmises:

Nope, these are worse.

5. The Pick-Six

Pick-Six (n, pik-siks); (1) an interception returned for a touchdown

Thoughts From A Fan: “Alright, third-and-two, let’s get this done…pass along the sidelines, good call – oh, shit, where’d fucking Charles Woodson come from…oh fuck, somebody catch him…goddammit, Randy Moss, try hustling once in a while…sweet, Brady just got leveled by a block from a 320-pound nose guard…ugh…I need a beer.”

Why it’s Devastating: You lose whatever field position you had, the ball is turned over – and your defense doesn’t get the chance to redeem you and force a three-and-out back. Any momentum you had from driving is dead and the opposing defense is fired up. Shit is bad.

Textbook example: Ty Law returning Kurt Warner’s dead duck 47 yards in Super Bowl XXXVI. Took the Rams offense out of the game for the next three quarters and sparked the idea that the Patriots could actually win the game. Also, any time Tedy Bruschi touched the damn ball between 2002 and 2005.

Another Textbook Example: Matt Schaub throwing a bullet to a surprised Clint Sessions literally as I was writing the last paragraph. Game over.

Comeback chances? Not impossible – it’s just one touchdown. After all, Warner and the Rams clawed back once the Pats tired down later in the game – but you can’t deny that the pick-six shuts down one side of the field for a few drives unless the situation is truly desperate. In fact, part of the reason it isn’t higher on the list is because it tends to occur late in the game with the offense down by more than one possession (see: Thanksgiving’s Packers-Lions blowout).

4. The Shank

The one that got away.

Thoughts from a Fan: “Alright, we missed the fourth down, but it’s just a 35-yarder, excellent conditions, flawless snap…wait, it’s tailing…no way…FUCK YOU, KRIS BROWN. FUCKING SERIOUSLY? I could have made that! On one leg! With a stubbed toe! Hammered! I need another beer.... “

Why it’s Devastating: Your kicker exposes himself as spectacularly incompetent, you lose essentially free points, you give your opponents field position and the confidence of knowing they only need to keep you out of the end zone to win…it’s a confluence of problems and doesn’t lend itself well to immediate recovery, especially because your deflated defense has to put out the fire and your kicker will be damaged goods for the rest of the game.

Textbook Examples: I don’t remember any because Vinatieri and Gostowski have nailed every big kick in the playoffs. Ha!

Comeback chances: Probably fine, but not if you let the game slip away in the shadow of the uprights. As long as you have a veteran specialist, you can hope he’ll shrug it off by the next time you need to call on him. Then again, you might also be left with a blithering shell of a man. Flip a coin.

3. The Hero’s Funeral March

Hellllooo, Injured Reserve List.

Thoughts from a Fan: “Ooof, tough hit, better rub some dirt on that one…Alright, seriously, get up…this is gonna take a timeout…wait, is that his fibula along the thirty-yard line? I need another drink.”

Why It’s Devastating: Just when the game is looking up, there’s nothing like the chilling sobriety of a brutal, season-ending injury to bring you back to earth. Forget about any pre-existing morale – it’ll get drowned between the anxiousness of hearing back from the team doctors about your star player and the mind-numbing possibility that the game is meaningless and the season is essentially over.

Textbook examples: Brady. MCL. 2008. Twenty minutes into a thereafter lost campaign. The tragically destroyed potential is kinda like Ted Williams’ lost years, minus the patriotism and plus a Victoria’s Secret model.

Comeback chances: Sometimes you never recover. Sometimes you win with a backup for a while (like with the example above). But it’s all a charade; eventually reality catches up and provides the rare double-whammy of despair. Alright, I’m done.

2. The Zebra Stampede

Zebra Stampede: (1) a rampaging herd of distinctly striped African mammals (2) the stupendously destructive yellow flag that cancels out a showstopping play from the good guys.

Thoughts from a Fan: “Good kick return…wait, he’s still going…and going…he’s down the sidelines…holy shit, there’s no way…he could do it! TOUCHDOWN! HA! WE DID IT! Hey, wait a minute..oh, you’re kidding me… EVERY FUCKING TIME! …What do you mean, we’re out of beer?”

Why It’s Devastating: Just when you think you’re in the clear and start celebrating, that tiny yellow BB-weighted sonofabitch ruins your evening. Hurts twice as much because it erases a brief, nascent heroism and replaces it with ignominy for one special individual, drawing the team down into a resentful spiral. At the very least, you lose a touchdown in the most painful manner possible.

Textbook Example: Willie McGinest getting called for defensive holding on Tebucky Jones’ 100-yard fumble recovery that would have finished off the Rams in the third quarter (same Super Bowl). A suddenly ragged Pats defense returns to the goal line, lets in the touchdown, and proceeds to blow the 14-point fourth-quarter lead.

Comeback Chances: Tough one. This can leave a pumped special times exhausted and a fan base shellshocked. Don’t count on help from the crowd (or your own players) for that something extra; everybody is too disappointed to care until something else (often worse) happens.

1. Judgment from Above

The much-maligned Booth Review.

Thoughts from a Fan: “HA! He fumbled it! It’s over! This nightmare is finally over! They don’t have any challenges le – wait…no, no way….not the review from above…” (3 tense minutes pass.) (muffled gunshot, spatter.)

Why It’s Devastating: This combines the momentous consequences of a pick-six or a shank with the debilitating tension of the Funeral March and the injustice of the Zebra Stampede. The forces that control the football world are conspiring against you, and there is absolutely no way to escape your fate.

Textbook example: The Snow Game. Charles Woodson’s hit on Tom Brady nearly ended a dynasty before it started, but the Football Gods saw fit to punish the Raiders for the sins of Jack “The Assassin” Tatum some two decades after the fact. That’s basically the best I can console despondent Raiders fans with, because the Tuck Rule and the associated ruling was horrendous. The Bills’ loss to the Titans in the Music City Miracle was also an unjustifiably painful way to lose (although my sympathy is somewhat limited by the fact that the kickoff return was fucking brilliant).

Comeback Chances: Pack it in. There’s always another game.

--kd

[1] From Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf’s fantastic Baseball Anecdotes: “The Quiz liked to confound reporters when they questioned him. After he gave up a game-winning hit to Angels rookie Daryl Sconiers, someone asked if that was the worst possible way to lose a game. He proceeded to rattle off 20 worse ways, including balking a runner all the way from first and an earthquake causing the center fielder to miss the last out.”

Vault Review: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is widely categorized as a Shitty Movie. In spite of my better instincts, I found it in the abandoned used DVD section of Newbury Comics for a pittance (read: four hard-earned dollars) and decided to liberate it from the sixth circle of Video Hell.

I haven’t seen it in something like half a decade; I figured the poor bastard deserved another chance (and I remembered half-liking it the first time through). But, I don’t want to take two hours to write a full review, so I’ll just sort of give annoying running commentary instead. In fact, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, Al Michaels and John Madden will be doing some guest work for this column (turkey drumsticks not included with Madden; some assembly required).

AL: Welcome, moviegoers, to the 2:15 AM showing of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!

MADDEN: Strong start with the prologue. Only four lines long, vague beyond imagination, and BOOM! Shitty movie alert right there.

AL: But, it’s 1899 and apparently interesting times in pre-WWI Europe, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt for gambling on a specific timeline. Also, you’re only allowed to use that BOOM gag five more times.

MADDEN: Deal.

AL: Jesus, while we were talking Europe is already on the brink of war. Not actually an inefficient use of time for exposition, even if they had to use hackneyed newspaper cliches to cut corners.

MADDEN: Oldest trick in the book… Ignoring, of course, the complex, decades-long escalation of imperial competition and assemblage of alliances that actually led to a European conflict.

AL: Fuck it, we can start a world war with a bank robbery and the Hindenberg going down in the docking bay.

MADDEN: Nice humanitarian effort by the as yet unnamed bad guy stopping such a dangerous form of travel before it gets off the ground.

AL: But like with the rest of this movie, an action scene will start while you’re discussing reality.

MADDEN: Looks like Sean Connery’s still got it. I swear, the man’s like Brett Favre…

AL: And looks like Stormtroopers still can’t shoot. For chrissakes, they have machine guns...

MADDEN: Brett Favre… [etc]

AL : Another clever Victorian literature reference as Quartermain fights off the Germans (?) and finds himself in London.

MADDEN: Brett Favre…

AL: What the fuck happened to Captain Nemo?

MADDEN: *coughracistcough*

AL: Glad to see you’re back in the game.

MADDEN: Just in time. Clutch play by the directors here to slam together exposition with zero character development. I guess Skinner is a jackass and Nemo is…still Caspian-ish. (?) . And doesn’t like being called a pirate.

AL: Somewhat ham-handed dialogue by M, who’s suffering a bad case of Gandalf Syndrome, but he’ll recover if the story does.

MADDEN: Mmmm…ham.

AL: Oof, Sean Connery shuts down the romance potential on the ride over to Dorian Gray’s place and kills any interesting-if-awkward love triangle with Mina. That’s going to sting later in the flick when the viewer loses interest over lack of compelling subplots.

MADDEN: Now, I gotta say I like this scene with Dorian Gray. Stuart Townsend turns in a quality performance every time, and the chronological reference is subtle enough to elicit a chuckle without slobbering all over itself.

AL: Oops, more Germans (?). And the Phantom is on the scene! And Tom Sawyer!

MADDEN: This movie suffers just a bit from cramming something like seventeen (!) character introductions into almost as few minutes. There’s no time for development! Sacrifice everything for the (admittedly absurd) plot! Full steam ahead! Throw the women and children off board!

AL: Okay, Tom Sawyer gets credit for an amusing opening line (“They told me European women had strange ways”). Everything from this point is downhill.

MADDEN: Literally every line Skinner has said so far has been fucking annoying, too.

AL: Okay, the team is assembled, Mina is a vampire, Tom Sawyer is a hick, Dorian Gray is “complicated” (a line that seriously ruined an entire fight scene and wiped out whatever cleverness creds he had built up), Alan Quartermain is old, Skinner is amoral and Cockney (probably contributes to the Irritation Index), and Nemo…is on a boat. And has no character.

MADDEN: His notable lines so far? “Millions will die” (special Awkward Points for making M double back in the conversation while contributing nothing useful to the discussion) and “I walk a different path” (referring, of course, to the fact that he’s the only character using a melee weapon in a world of machine guns…except for Gray with his cane, Skinner with a book, and Quartermain with his fists. Or Mina with her teeth. Or Hyde with any part of his body. Come to think of it, the only Gentleman who does use a gun is Tom Sawyer, and he can’t hit the broad side of a Phantom with an early ending on the line.)

AL: Blink and you’ll miss it – another team member gets dragged (in this case, literally) into the mission. Hyde spouts off some improved poetry about England, Jekyll tries nobly to hold up his Hulk-sized pants, and we’re actually ready for Venice this time!

MADDEN: Seriously, Nemo keeps the ‘defining trait per line’ ratio at a solid zero through two more scenes. Exposition, exposition, talking about the Nautilus without bragging…he’s a perfect symbol for how bland this movie becomes (Quartermain sums it up best in conversing: “Thanks for your, eh, contributions so far…”) between the occasional flashes of self-referential humor.

AL: Much like the scene between Sawyer, Mina, and Dorian. Let’s break it down in instant replay.

MADDEN: Alright (maps out the characters on deck and somehow finagles his way into drawing a phallus). Here’s Dorian over here, and he’s got Mina covered. Coach Quartermain decides for a safe play, but Sawyer calls an audible and BOOM! He gets knocked flat. Dorian pursues and gives one of the more well-timed nonverbals of the movie. That’s high-quality players playing high-quality play right there.

AL: And this next scene with Sawyer and Quartermain…

MADDEN: This one just screams “FATHER-SON RELATIONSHIP! TRAUMATIC PAST! NAÏVE YOUTH! WISE MENTOR FIGURE! ONE IS GOING TO DIE!” Okay, done screaming now.

AL: Ooooh, Nemo is Indian. Gotcha. Mina is an essentialist uncultured vampire bitch. Also gotcha.

MADDEN: Hellllo, Dorian and Mina…and Jekyll watching creepily from the doorway. Makes you wonder what Hyde would be doing in this situation…*shudder*.

AL: How does nobody freak out when seeing the Nautilus? It’s not like it can just sneak through a gigantic city in Europe. And how does it stay balanced?

MADDEN: Lots of explosions going on all around it all the time do the job pretty well. Hey, we’re in Venice already! Let’s blow some shit up and reveal all the secrets with an hour left to go!

AL: We urge viewers who haven’t seen the movie before to stop here. This is basically spoiler material from this line forward. Please go. Stop reading. See the movie and come back (you, too, can make fun of ambiguous ethnicities and vacuous characterizations).

MADDEN: So if M is really James Moriarty (which explains the “run, James!” from the one-lined martial artist German (?) earlier in the movie). Dorian is evil (the guy with the portrait that reflects his sins? No!).

AL: The villain is stupid, the minion is fatally flawed, and the heroes narrowly escape death…somehow. All is as it should be.

MADDEN: Although the scene where Hyde saves the crew makes no sense. Where the fuck does the water go? Why doesn’t more come in? This goes somewhere beyond suspension of disbelief into the realm of redefining physics.

AL: But at least Nemo said something substantive. “They have to die…for the greater good!” He’s a rational Western utilitarian! And a devout Hindu, I guess.

AL: And we’re in Antarctica for the Big Battle!

MADDEN: Actually, Mongolia.

AL: Whatever, Skinner’s back, so the next few scenes are fucked anyway. Morale scene, plotting scene, bad guys talk and threaten each other, Dorian Gray is evil. Do we believe in miracles? Not at this stage.

MADDEN: Yawn. Get to the good stuff.

AL: Highlights of the next thirty minutes of action: (1) The Hyde versus Mega-Hyde battle, committing possibly the two ugliest characters in the history of celluloid against each other; (2)Mina and Dorian’s sexually charged confrontation, ringing with occasionally chuckle-worthy punnery but mostly caught up in its own ridiculousness (btw, bring a fucking wooden stake, Dorian). (3) Jekyll not really resolving his internal conflict at all and winning by running away (4) Quartermain not killing the villain for no apparent reason despite virtually unlimited time to do so (5) Tom Sawyer heroically shooting the Phantom in the back as he flees. All worthy of more discussion if they weren’t independently hilarious and if it weren’t four in the morning.

MADDEN: All right, let’s sum it up. Good for Victorian literature fans? As long as you’re not too crazy about details. Good for comic junkies? As long as you aren’t looking for Alan Moore’s untouched masterpieces on screen. Good for casual moviegoers who miss the references and just want a straightforward shooter without the frills? Probably not – there’s so many frills the substance gets lost in the mix. That said, there are some laughs, an interesting plot, a cool setting…worth a watch, on the whole. How many BOOMs do I have left?

AL: Three.

MADDEN: BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Okay, fuck it, I’m done, good night.

AL: From Mongolia, this is Al Michaels and John Madden, wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.

FINAL REVIEW: Two and a half Extraordinary Gentlemen out of four.

--kd

The Historian’s Fallacy, or, Why Bill Belichick Made a Good Call

Before I address the actual focus of this article: The Patriots-Colts matchup was the best game of the year. Better than the Favre Hail Mary against the Niners. Better than that Saints comeback against the Dolphins. Everybody who’s ‘sick of the hype’ should shut the hell up, grab a beer, and enjoy what consistently turns into the most exciting sixty minutes of the regular season (and repeat every year until Peyton Manning is making a living off commercials and bad color commentary).

Onto subjects more pressing: By now, everybody in the country has heard about Bill Belichick’s choice to go for it on 4^th down. Generations to follow will remember it as, ostensibly, the worst choice of his long and distinguished career (well, maybe). But, over the cacophony of emotional reactions from Pats fans everywhere - Irish sports bars erupting in derisive obscenities, agonized elitists throwing their champagne glasses and pocket watches at the television, sunshine patriots waking from their premature slumber to hear their radio’s ill tidings – history and perhaps Gregg Easterbrook will vindicate me in saying:

He made a good call.

-----

The Historian’s Fallacy (also explained eloquently and somewhat hilariously by the folks over at Cracked), in short, amounts to retrospective decision-making, or more appropriately, Monday morning quarterbacking. The pundits arbitrarily criticizing him for going for it, the same ones that criticize other coaches for not having gone for it when it mattered, are guilty of the Historian’s Fallacy par excellence.

Of course Belichick shouldn’t have gone for it if he knew Faulk would bobble the ball or if he knew they’d be six inches short. Of course he’d punt it away if he somehow accessed a parallel dimension and knew it would have made the definitive difference. But he didn’t; he made the call based on assessing the probability of success against the consequences of failure, and as I’ll show below, he made the rationally sound (even if ultimately ‘incorrect’) decision.

So let’s look at the comparative benefits of the decision, and the drawbacks, doing our best only to use what was theoretically accessible to him at the time.

-If it works, the game is over. Short, sweet, and to the point. If the Pats complete a two-yard slant to a dependable veteran playing the best game of his life, they can roll through the two minute warning, take a knee, and go home with an untouchable lead in the East and a bead on the Colts’ home field advantage. Seriously, two yards. As ESPN’s front-page NFL blogs note, the Patriots have converted on over 63 percent of fourth-and-short opportunities since Brady took over. That’s a phenomenal rate; combined with the fact that Brady and the offense have been rolling all game long, you have to estimate that the rate is, if anything, higher.

-It’s the gutsiest call of the decade. This isn’t an emotional impetus to choose the more ‘heroic’ option – it has some pragmatic benefits. First, let’s assume the play fails. Belichick takes all the heat, while Brady and the defense catch a breather away from the spotlight. As the week unfolds, we’ll see his ‘genius’ label questioned (probably alright for his humility, I guess); ultimately everybody decides he’s somewhere between an inscrutable mastermind and just another human being, and most fans still trust him with the headset. In other words, nothing new happens, and no old questions get answered. Meanwhile, the defense avoids a humiliating barrage of criticism and crushing media pressure, but still get the benefits of Belichick thoroughly working them over to prepare for Drew Brees and the Saints. Second, let’s assume the play succeeds: Belichick earns his reputation for incredibly ballsy and intelligent coaching, adds another footnote to his legend, and nobody in New England second-guesses him again (ever). The defense doesn't get blamed but still needs retooling, so Bill gets to figure out adjustments without harrying questions at every turn. Worth the call on its own? Perhaps not. But certainly tempting when combined with a mathematically favorable choice.

-We were screwed on defense regardless of field position. Peyton Manning just completed an 80-yard drive in six plays and less than two minutes without using a timeout (maybe you remember it – it landed the Patriots in this situation in the first place). He ended up scoring, taking his damn time about it, almost without effort. There’s no feasible way a group of tired, hopelessly cowed defensive backs stops Manning, even if you add 40 yards to the field. Is there really greater than a two-out-of-three chance that the Patriots catch a break in the form of a loose fumble, a dead-duck interception or (exceptionally) bad clock management by Manning? I don’t think so.

-----

There are, of course, potential drawbacks to the decision, which I’ll address point-by-point. I like to think of them being read by Jay Mariotti or Phil Simms (especially Simms – fuck Phil Simms), but you’re free to visualize whoever you want.

“The decision was wrong because it showed a lack of trust in his defense” –ESPN/basically everybody, including Tedi "Still My Favorite Player Even if He's a Fucking Sellout for the Moment" Bruschi, 12:00 onward

The assertion that Belichick showed he had ‘no faith in his defense’ seems to be the most common argument. First – and most obviously – if we assume that that the degree of faith he shows in his squad makes a significant difference, there’s no reason his fourth-down call shouldn’t have fired up his offense enough (or, at the very least, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have believed it would). Every ounce of ‘trust’ he invests in one side trades off with the other. If ‘faith’ is worth forty yards of defense, it’s worth six inches of offense. Second, as mentioned above, we have to assume they deserved that trust before it becomes a sound decision to bet the game on them.

“This breaks every rule of coaching” – ESPN, 2:25 AM

This remark upsets me a bit. Breaking the rules of coaching is not inherently good or bad – yes, those rules (guidelines, if you prefer) are there for a reason, but coaches are alternately praised or jeered for ignoring them only according to their success in doing so, rather than their method or their justification. Plus, convention does not mean success (otherwise, coaches would be rewarded for having no distinguishing features); Belichick is Belichick, he breaks the rules (as Jets fans remind us, sometimes even the actual ones), and he’ll be in the Hall of Fame for it.

“It was a knee-jerk emotional decision that cost them the game.” –ESPN, 2:30 AM

While it would be somewhat cool to imagine Bill Belichick replaced by Harrison Ford, shouting at Offensive Coordinator C-3PO to ‘never tell me the odds’, I view the idea that a seasoned, indubitably successful coach with a history of coldly rational decisions (most of which leave him at odds with fans, and the media, but never his players) suddenly suffered a complete panic attack and gave in to sentimentality with a degree of healthy skepticism. Are we really investing credibility in the idea that Belichick, a man so distant that we collectively question the existence of his soul, decided he wanted a Hollywood ending for the kids? The only reason he even got to that point was clock management – namely, that he mixed up the game clock with his personal countdown timer for the cyborg invasion. Okay, I’ll stop. But this point is ridiculous.

By the way, the idea that Belichick entirely ‘cost them the game’ is out of whack for other reasons. A Lawrence Maroney fumble and a Brady interception, both third-quarter turnovers in the end zone, also killed their chance to put the game out of reach. Peyton Manning playing at the level of Bo Jackson starring in his own video game for most of the fourth quarter probably contributed. Above all, a defense that gave up 35 points to a predictable team with no rushing game is inexcusable.

I don’t want to be accused of denying the opposition their strongest arguments (I’m anything but even-handed, but purely from a self-interested perspective, I don’t like seeing my argumentative credibility compromised). Plus, I’m wicked tired, so I’ll stop here. If you’ve got anything I didn’t address, anything you think I should have looked at, or if you just think I’m wrong and want to re-word Phil Simms’ objections, feel free to post or e-mail me (I’ve always wanted to do a mailbag).

--kd

(ps – Peyton Manning gets my ballot for MVP. Granted, it won’t help him in the postseason when he throws three picks and gets booed at home in the inevitable AFC showdown in January…but that was an incredible performance when it mattered most. Ugh. )

Winter Term Schedule

Well, there's a few weeks left until actual course selection time, but I threw together a schedule based on random whim from the LSA course catalog [1]. Here's my draft:

Polisci 314 - American Political Parties and Electoral Problems
History 322 - The Origins of Nazism
Polisci 389 - Persuasive Politics: Voter, Campaign, and Communication Strategies
French 232 - Fourth Semester French

I'm eager to take everything on here except for French (dreading that one to an extreme, almost desperate degree). I hated French in high school. I still hate it now (admittedly less than taking four semesters of a new language...but it's close).

If any of my readers are also U of M undergrads, comment and let me know your schedule ideas. New and original classes are welcome suggestions.

[1] Fuck it, I can take all liberal arts and not starve - I'll probably end up in law school anyway]

--kd

Pedro's Last Stand

You know the drill. Running journal time...

[Editor's Note: This is not one of FC's more gleeful blog posts. If you want happiness and sunshine, go somewhere else. It was not a pleasant evening in Couzens 5506.]

8:05 – I rush in just in time, returning from a lecture by Cape Town philosophy professor David Benetar. The lecture, entitled “Why Your Life Is So Much Worse Than You Think,” stressed the ultimate failure, disappointment, and suffering in human…hey, the bottom of the inning’s starting, let’s just shut up and watch the game.

8:07 – Pedro gets Jeter, the Old Enemy, to line out hard to left. Bronx fans try to start up three different chants to psyche him out, and end up incoherently shouting mixed obscenities. Pedro smirks and stalls to keep them interested.

8:09 – Johnny Damon, who’s been ‘so hot this World Series’ whiffs on a 2-2 changeup. Tim McCarver’s unfailing predictive analysis does the trick again.

8:11 – Teixeira gets a hold of one and the prospect of hearing Yankee fans erupt in malicious celebration nearly ends this column in the first inning. Thankfully, everybody forgets about the warning track and the inning ends quietly.

8:19 – McCarver notes that the Phillies lefthanded bats “have been neutralized this series”, before recognizing the Chase-Utley shaped elephant in the room and correcting himself. Buck takes care of the awkward silence by shifting the conversation away from anything requiring brain-wracking analysis.

8:21 – Admittedly somewhat worrying fact (ASWF, or ‘The Lefty Keyboard Slammer”): Pedro hasn’t thrown a pitch over 85. Not sure if that just means he’s pacing himself or he’s a sitting duck – I guess we’ll find out.

8:27 – Pedro walks A-Rod on four pitches and gives Matsui a fat pitch on the inside to pull (read: clobber), fortunately foul.

8:34 – ....yep, there it goes.

8:39 – Well, getting out of the inning after that wasn’t so tough, but then again, it’s pretty much just the walk up to the guillotine after the death sentence. Yep, this is what happens to you after a lecture on Schopenhauer.

8:46 – The Phillies get one back on a sacrifice fly. The run support has been pretty pitiful for Pedro in the postseason – almost 2000-era-Red-Sox-esque. This is the stuff six losses with an era under two is made of!

8:51 – Strikeout after the commercial break. Fucking unflappable.

8:53 – Shane Victorino gets lazy and decides not to break his wrist to catch another Jeter frozen rope.

8:59 – Pedro’s pitch count is definitely stacking up. Umpires are merciless. It’s looking like a short evening…or a long one, depending on whether I stick around after the gruesome part.

9:00 – Teixeira gets beaned in the knee for no apparent reason. The wheels are coming off…

9:01 – It’s not really useful to keep statistics for “most X in a postseason” when there are far more games in the postseason. It’s one thing to give Maris the extra eight games over Ruth, it’s another to give a modern player three times as many chances to hit a home run.

9:04 – A-Rod watches a beautiful strike three go by. Two outs.

9:05 – According to Buck, Charlie Manual was looking to replace Pedro with a lefty to face Matsui. Does nobody else in the booth realize that it’s the third inning and that the Phillies don’t have a bullpen that can get three outs, much less nineteen?

9:07 – Nevermind.

9:08 – Well, that’s human endeavor for you. Pitch for a decade and a half in half a dozen cities, put together the best two seasons in baseball history, start writing your Hall of Fame speech…and it still ends in the dugout, getting pulled after three miserable innings with an eighty-mile-an-hour fastball in your personal Ninth Circle of Hell.

9:12 – The Men Who Stare at Goats trailer comes on and provides a brief moment of relief in an existence of pain. Guess a hedonism-based framework for existential happiness works for the moment.

9:15 – Chase Utley strikes out…and the specter of the Will to Live rears its ugly head.

9:19 – In a somewhat bizarre occurrence, the ball gets by Posada, who casually jogs to the backstop to retrieve it. Werth, almost surprised at Posada’s ineptitude, also declines to hustle and only takes second. Not sure who got the raw deal there.

9:24 – In a spectacular show of impotence, the Phillies fail to take advantage of Pettite’s sudden loss of control and ground out weakly to third with two on and two out.

9:27 – Pedro emerges from the dugout for another stretch of what can only be described as peril.

9:32 – Pedro returns to the dugout for a showe – wait, it’s the end of the inning?

9:33 – A 1-2-3 inning of vicious line drives right at fielders never felt so good…at least not since the first inning an hour or so ago.

9:42 – The Phillies ground into another pathetic double play.

9:47 – Pedro doesn’t come out for another inning this time. Well, my comments at 9:08 still stand. Four innings without distinction, no standing ovation, just a gleeful New York Post and a vindictive crowd...

Well, there’s always next year.

--kd

Pedro's Last Stand: Prelude

Well, it's been almost a week since I last posted. Back-to-back tournaments, midterms, a conference paper, and Fate herself have conspired to keep me from my keyboard.

But I'm back. And as the title above suggests, purpose to write has re-emerged just in time.

Tonight might be the last chance to see the greatest pitcher of all time (yes, I went there - I'll go there all night, for that matter). So, watch close, or failing that, return here afterwards for my account interspersed with sentimental/bitter memories.

Depending on how tragic/epic this game is, any recounting may or may not take the form of poetry. You have been so warned.

Back later.

--kd