Stool Samples

By: Pat Imig and Josh Bacott (email: pgi@joesportsfan.com)

“Yes, a seven-game series is a lot of baseball, but how big is Game 1 in the World Series? The Game 1 winner has gone on to win the series 60 out of 100 times.” – Tom Verducci on SI.com

Um, Tom, that’s only 60% of the time. That means that 40% of the time the loser of Game 1 has won the World Series. Great point.

“If in fact you sort of discount batting average, Andruw Jones has an advantage over Albert Pujols.” – Karl Ravech – Baseball Tonight – on the NL MVP race

True, Karl. And by the same token, if you sort of discount batting average, homeruns, RBI, and every other major statistical category, you have to figure that Hector Luna has an advantage over Pujols as well.

“I don't mean to rain on Cincinnati's parade and I'm not going to call them the same old Bengals. But they looked like the same old Bengals to me.” – Peter King, SI.com

Peter, you can’t say that you aren’t going to call them the same old Bengals and then proceed to call them the same old Bengals in the next sentence. Only John Madden can do that kind of stuff.

“I like what he brings as far as a football player is concerned.” – Mark Schlereth, on Chad Pennington

With every use of the word “football”, Schlereth proves why ESPN is paying him loads of money.

“Last week was a tough week (for the Minnesota Vikings). That was the week where the wives questioned ‘am I leaving?’ ‘am I staying?’ They decided not to leave and take half, they’re going to stay and spend it all. Now they can put the focus back on the football field.” – Michael Irvin on the issues facing Vikings players accused of being on the infamous sex cruise.

Now that’s the kind of insight we like to hear from our analysts.

"Sometimes thinking can be a bad thing." – Vikings Coach, Mike Tice

Tice writes that on his bathroom mirror in toothpaste every night before bed so that he remembers it in the morning.

“He just manages baseball.” – Mike Ditka, on Ozzie Guillen

If Ditka and Mark Schlereth were granted their own sports talk radio show, they could call it Obvious Conversation…. “I like Freddy Garcia because he’s a pitcher.” “This guy’s a baseball player. He comes to the park to play baseball because that’s what he is, a baseball player.”

“I have never taken a lesson on how to talk on TV in my life.” – Tim McCarver

As Clark Griswold says when Mary tells him her name at the lingerie store, “no shit?”

“Yes he should be starting. When you look at the Carson Palmers and the Eli Mannings, you can see that Alex Smith should be in there taking these growing pains.” Ron Jaworski, on whether Alex Smith should be starting.

Jaws, you kind of contradicted yourself by bringing up Carson Palmer. After all, he did sit out the entire 2003 season.

ESPN Halloween Costume Party

The JSF staff managed to sneak a mole into the ESPN Company Halloween party and reported these costumes worn by the Worldwide Leader’s favorite group of analysts:

Mark Schlereth – A Football
Sean Salisbury – A Pro Bowl Quarterback
Tom Jackson – WWF Wrestler Bad News Brown
John Kruk – The Cookie Monster
John Madden – Brett Favre
Harold Reynolds – Andruw Jones
Peter Gammons – Andrew Jackson
Pedro Gomez – A bush in Barry Bonds’ front yard (he’s had the costume since last year)
Ron Jaworski – Bowser from Nintendo
Stu Scott – Marky Mark
Merril Hoge – Sensei John Kreese
Michael Irvin – showed up in a purple suit, top hat and cane but no one could figure out if he was in costume or not
Chris Berman – Chris Berman

The Favre Man Crush Continues

For those who have become loyal readers of The Media Circus, you’ve no doubt noticed that the coverage of Packers QB Brett Favre is a popular topic of conversation from week to week. (Keep in mind, we have no problems with Favre himself, simply with the comically biased way that he is covered in the media.)

Never was the media man-crush tested more than after the Week 8 disaster in Cincinnati, where Favre threw 5 interceptions and ended the game with a moronic fake spike and illegal underhand pass with the Packers within striking distance of a game-tying touchdown.

CBS’s Boomer Esiason offered up some refreshing criticism of the QB after his performance by dropping this comment on the post-game show:

“You know what guys, if this were David Carr, Joey Harrington, Michael Vick, Aaron Brooks, we would kill him. I know that Brett Favre has a wealth of credibility from this panel up here, but you can’t end the game like that. That was just careless.”

That’s what we’ve been saying all along, Boomer.

Despite the obviously sub par performance by the media Golden Boy, the fellas at ESPN NFL Primetime were able to successfully deflect any criticism with the following analysis:

“It’s just sad to see. He’s trying, but he’s alone. It’s sad to see. One of the greatest players in the history of the NFL having a season like this.” – Chris Berman.

“Each and every time Brett Favre goes out to play, he has very little help. I think he’s tried it both ways- I think he’s tried being careful with the football, but he’s gonna go down the gunslinger.” – Tom Jackson

Ah yes, the classic “gunslinger” defense followed by the increasingly popular “he’s alone,” defense that was also used by Favre groupie Peter King on SI.com who said his man was “just trying to do too much with a bunch of strangers.”

If Brett Favre has a bad game, you better believe it’s someone else’s fault.

Media Rant of the Week (Strap in, this could be a long one)
The gap between sports “fan” and sports “expert” continues to become smaller and smaller every day.

A shining example of this phenomenon is ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. Amongst their regular lineup of analysts are a few reporters who seem to genuinely take their jobs seriously and go out of their way to study and provide insight and information; guys like Peter Gammons and Tim Kurkjian.

Surrounding them is a growing population of former players turned analysts who continually make themselves sound ridiculous by spouting off comments that are incorrect or just plain stupid. Because Baseball Tonight is on roughly 356 times per week during the season, shows that feature Gammons or Kurkjian are a rare treat. Shows that feature Harold Reynolds, Jeff Brantley and John Kruk are an everyday occurrence.

While former players might seem to offer some insight based on their on-field experiences, too often they throw out comments that clearly aren’t researched and go a long way towards undermining their credibility.

Case in point:

A week ago Friday night, Baseball Tonight was airing its year-end Web Gems show and the topic of the NL MVP came up. Harold Reynolds, a supposed “expert” and the president of the “throwing out random info despite having no clue what I’m talking about” club, laid out his case for Atlanta Braves centerfielder Andruw Jones. Certainly the opinion is one that is shared by many others, but Reynolds went a little further in his explanation and in the process made himself look completely idiotic.

Speaking about Jones’ offensive season (.263 batting average, 51 HR’s, 128 RBI), Reynolds dropped this bomb to counterparts John Kruk and host Karl Ravech:

“Even Willie Mays in his great years didn’t put up numbers like that offensively.”

Are you sure about that, Harold?

When Ravech responded with the mention of Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle as a comparison, Reynolds reinforced his ignorance by going a step further.

“Didn’t have those kinds of numbers.” Reynolds defiantly said in reference to Mantle.

A paid analyst on ESPN’s flagship baseball show, whose sole job is to watch and study baseball, just made the claim that neither Willie Mays nor Mickey Mantle, two of the greatest CF of all time, have ever had seasons like the one Andruw Jones just turned in.

Strong stuff. And completely incorrect.

In roughly one minute, we were able to look up the career numbers of both Mays and Mantle. Turns out both of them had multiple seasons that were superior to Jones’. Who could have figured?

In 1956, Mickey Mantle hit .353 with 52 HR’s and 130 RBI, topping Jones in all three Triple Crown categories. In 1961, he hit .317 with 54 HR’s and 128 RBI.

Mays had three seasons that were comparable including 1955 (.319, 51, 127), 1962 (.304, 49, 141) and 1965 (.317, 52, 112).

Mistakes like these wouldn’t be a notable issue if they weren’t so commonplace.

The simple point is that a normal fan was able to log onto the Internet and in 60 seconds, cue up stats that directly refute the claims of a so-called expert. Almost worse than the initial remarks from Reynolds, was the fact that the two other baseball analysts on the show didn’t bat an eye when Harold started flinging around ridiculous claims. As for Reynolds, he’s been clamoring for Andruw Jones as MVP for close to three months now, so it’s quite obvious that he’s willing to say anything to prove his point… even if it means giving information that is factually baseless.

How are these people not held accountable? If a regular person sucked at their job as bad as some of these guys do, they’d be polishing their profile on Monster.com any day now.

Sean Salisbury is Angry at You
After Steve Berthiume mentioned Texas taking over USC’s top spot in the BCS, Sean nearly exploded.

“Don’t get me started. Do you want me to get out of my chair??? “

I can see the headline now: “Former third string quarterback assaults sports anchor.”