Monday Medley

What we read while turning down the Donald Trump debate…

• Tim Tebow keeps engineering miraculous comebacks (it’s almost making John S believe in God) and last week two of NPI’s favorite writers tried to figure out why so many hate him: Paul Shirley analyzed the racial aspect of the Tebow phenomenon, while Chuck Klosterman thinks it’s all about religion.

• Speaking of Klosterman, he ranked his favorite hair metal albums of the 1980s.

• You’re never going to guess who’s comedy album is ranked as the best of 2011 (unless you guessed Louis C.K., because it’s Louis C.K.). C.K. also released his new special at his website for $5. In other comedy news, Ron Swanson was named the best TV character of the year and David Wain returned with more episodes of Wainy Days!

• Perhaps the biggest sports story of last week was Albert Pujols signing with the Los Angeles Angels for $254 million. Friend of the blog Will Leitch was obviously distraught, though Pujols will always have a place in Cardinals history. As usual, Jonah Keri tried to break down the numbers.

• While Pujols was the biggest on-field story, John Branch’s three-part exploration of late Rangers’ enforcer Derek Boogaard may have been the most important off-field story done all year.

• This building may evoke images of 9/11 but still, doesn’t it look really cool?

• Oh potential of high-speed rail, we hardly knew ye.

• The Millions kicks off its always entertaining and enlightening “Year in Reading” series.

• Serious Eats’ on Bad Good and Good Bad pizza.

• So, um, this is pretty racist. And so is this.

• ESPN’s Tim Keown laments the ossification of the sports interview.

Monday Medley

What we read while–BOO!

• A great World Series concluded Friday night. As usual, the great series caused a lot of debate. Jonah Keri listed the 21 craziest things about Game 5 (only one of which was Bullpengate). That game alone was so fraught that Will Leitch needed an extra day to get over it. Of course, things got better for him in Game 6, with the Cardinals TWICE pulling off shocking comebacks, leading Tim McCarver of all people to come up with the call of the postseason. Plenty of writers tried to put the game into perspective, but perhaps Roger Angell’s scorecard sums it up best. Of course, St. Louis ended up coming out on top, and Keri tried to determine if the Cardinals were the most unlikely champion ever. Meanwhile, Joe Poz called all this back in August…

• Where did the seven-game series come from, anyway?

• In non-World Series news, Aaron Sorkin is writing a Steve Jobs biopic (“You know what’s cooler than an iPod? An iPod Nano!”), but has everyone forgotten his true masterpiece, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip?

• This satire of The Mentalist is funny even if you’ve never seen a second of the show.

• Matt Taibbi continued his coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests, while also exposing Rick Perry’s ignoble reign in Texas.

• Don’t read this if you enjoy seafood.

 

Talkin’ Baseball: NLCS

You’ve already seen how spot-on our resident baseball experts were in Game 1 of the ALCS — John remarkably predicted two rain delays lasting approximately 45 and 60 minutes, both occurring in the bottom of the fifth (he was half-a-frame off) — so you should be psyched to see them back at it for the NLCS — a battle of Central Division rivals who last met in the playoffs in the 1982 World Series. That’s right, it’s the first-ever rematch of a World Series in a non-World Series round of the postseason. History!

TIM: Alright, so I think I’m finally over the Mets loss in the 2006 NLCS to talk about…wait, the Cardinals are back in it? Didn’t they miss the playoffs by like 15 games?

JOHN: It certainly seemed heading for that a few months ago. But, hey, look on the bright side: They managed to make the playoffs thanks to a collapse by your hated Atlanta Braves!

MLB Preview Bonanza: NL Central

Ugh…whenever I find myself waiting in a line or at an airport and I need something to do to keep my mind occupied for a little while, I try to name all the sports teams. This isn’t all that difficult for me at this point; I usually get them all. But my strategy is always to go division by division. And the NL Central always screws me up. Six teams? Every other division in major professional sports now contains five teams or fewer…except the NL Central. And so I always end up taking longer than usual to run through them: Let’s see…Cardinals, Cubs, umm, ugh, Pirates, who else? Having six teams in the NL Central throws off the whole attempt at scheduling in the NL. I know the Mets play their division foes 18 times, but how many times do Central teams play other Central teams? It’s not still 18, right? Is it only 12? Twelve seems too few, doesn’t it? Well, you know how many it is? There’s no standard. The Cubs, for instance, play the Cardinals, Brewers, and Pirates 15 times, the Reds 16 times, and the Astros 18 times. This is the worst division in sports.

It wasn’t the worst division in the National League until recently, though. The Central had more representatives in the NLCS (eight) than the East or West in the Aughts. But only one of those teams–and ironically, the worst of them, the 2006 Cardinals–went on to win the World Series, and the Central hasn’t gotten a team out of the Division Series in the last three years. St. Louis is the favorite to repeat in 2010, but I’ve got other ideas.

Aught Lang Syne: Franchises of the Decade

After running through the Teams of the Decade this morning, it’s time to rank the Franchises/Programs of the Decade—those that have consistently churned out competitive and championship-winning teams. My criteria included things like regular-season record, number of playoff appearances, conference titles, and championships into the equation, alongside less quantifiable measures such as historical imprint and landmark players.

NFL

(all information prior to Week 16 of 2009 NFL season)

WORST: Detroit Lions (0 playoff appearances, 0-16 season, 42-116 record)

5. New York Giants (1 title, 2 conference championships, 6 playoff appearances, 6-5 playoff record, 88-70 regular season)

4. Philadelphia Eagles (1 conference championship, 8 playoff appearances, 10-7 playoff record, 102-55-1 regular season)

3. Pittsburgh Steelers (2 titles, 2 conference championships, 6 playoff appearances, 10-4 playoff record, 101-56-1 regular season)

2. Indianapolis Colts (1 title, 1 conference championship, 9 playoff appearances, 7-7 playoff record, 115-43 regular season)

MLB Postseason Preview: Cardinals vs. Dodgers

St. Louis Cardinals (91-71) at

Los Angeles Dodgers (95-67)

OVERVIEW

About four months ago, when LA held about a 15-game lead in the NL West, my only Dodgers’ fan friend asked me to assess their playoff chances. My response? “Who’s your Game 1 starter? Exactly. What you did to the Cubs last year will happen to you.” The Dodgers are built for the regular season with a deep lineup and egalitarian rotation. The Cardinals, meanwhile, have played tremendously since acquiring Matt Holliday in July, have the league’s two best pitchers in Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, and the best hitter of the last four decades in Albert Pujols. St. Louis has been better than Los Angeles for some time, and that will be borne out rather quickly, I think, in this series.

THE LINEUPS

The Dodgers’ lineup, like their pitching staff, is deep but not highlighted by any one star. And that includes Manny Ramirez, who has hit .290 with a pedestrian 19 home runs. Guys like Andre Ethier, James Loney, and Matt Kemp are dangerous but unproven, and I wouldn’t feel particularly comfortable counting on them. Russell Martin has had, by all accounts, a horrendous season. There’s very little difference between the Dodgers’ fifth hitter and their eighth hitter, which is both a good and bad thing.

The Cardinals have Albert Pujols. (Fine, some more: Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa give the lineup more depth than it had when Ryan Ludwick, Rick Ankiel, and Colby Rasmus were protecting Pujols. Obvs. And Tony LaRussa stopped batting his pitcher eighth in late July. Sigh.)