A love letter to Dana White and the UFC.

I just kind of feel like the WEC is the MMA equivalent of Triple-A baseball. And it's sad, because it's the best organization in the world in two very exciting divisions.

So here it is, Wednesday night, prime time, WEC 50, a title fight on Versus, a network that has done nothing but promote this organization since it began carrying it. And I live in an urban environment where I subsequently have done nothing but attempt to get casual football fans to follow MMA. And oddly enough, everyone loves it. Any fight with Brock Lesnar, Rampage Jackson, Anderson Silva, George St. Pierre, BJ Penn: Cards featuring stars such as these I have no trouble getting all of my friends behind. In 2010, sports are all about marketing stars and making new stars. And sad to say, in the entire history of WEC, the only star to ever been made is Urijah Faber, who is not the top fighter at 145 lb at the moment, though possibly has more mainstream endorsements than every other MMA fighter combined at this point. Subsequently, I can't get anyone to watch WEC. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Only the hardcore fans are watching WEC.

So naturally the geniuses at Zuffa, owners of both the UFC and WEC, decided to promote a stacked card on Versus, a channel that Dish Network doesn't even offer on its basic package, on a Wednesday night, a night when the demographic that any MMA broadcast should be targeting should probably be more attentive to wives and children than to dudes banging in a cage live on a fairly unavailable channel. I am pretty interested to see what the rating is for the show, because it can't be very good, and it could have been a lot better had a little bit of foresight been applied...

I am the one hardcore MMA fan in my entire group of friends in Northern Virginia. I went to the sold out UFC Fight Night in Fairfax in January and paid 85 dollars to sit in the nosebleeds with no other friends at Patriot Center for a fairly crappy card. I try to market it as best I can to my friends who are less educated about the sport, but I am held captive by the cards that are offered. It is extremely difficult to convince my girlfriend to accompany me to the bar on a Saturday night, and pay a combined 10 dollar cover to watch a good UFC card with friends, much less an average or bad card. If it were my sole decision, I would watch every MMA card, because it is the most entertaining sport outside of football, and generally there is at least one great fight that is worth the time and effort, if not more. However, I do not live in a vacuum, and I have to convince others to watch as well, or otherwise, I can't legally watch my favorite sport without either sitting at a bar by myself (not advisable) or spending a huge amount of money to watch it at home (even worse).

My girlfriend was absolutely riveted by the Anderson Silva/Chael Sonnen fight at UFC 117 on August 7. She loved that a fighter that I, and the rest of the world thought had no chance of losing could be threatened for an entire fight by a guy who was essentially a nobody. The only other sport that offers this sort of a thrill to non-fans is college football, a sport where Appalachian State can knock off perennial power Michigan, or a Boise State can beat Oklahoma in a BCS bowl game. I was wearing a UFC 82 T-Shirt that night and even though I saw in person that a good wrestler like Dan Henderson or Chael Sonnen could take a round from the great Anderson Silva, I never imagined that anyone could take four in a row or actually come close to winning. My jaw stayed dropped for about twenty solid minutes. Then when Silva won in the fifth and order was restored, I saw something I never expected. The casual fans thought that Josh Rosenthal jobbed Sonnen, and were angry at the outcome. But the craziest thing emerged from this fight.

My girlfriend knew Silva would win in the fifth, and thought Silva was working everyone.

You have to understand, my girlfriend is the only person I’ve allowed in my life that is significantly smarter than I am. This was the third UFC card she’d ever watched, and the second involving Silva, as she watched the Damian Maia fight, which I might be the only person on Earth who thought was an awesome fight (another argument for another day). She has a black belt in Taekwondo (who doesn’t? I should probably work on one since I know four), and thus has an interesting perspective on a sport she doesn’t actually follow or care about in the slightest. Naturally, at the start of the fifth round, when the entire bar is contemplating a world with Chael “The World’s Most Pissed Off Real Estate Agent” Sonnen as the 185 lb champion of the world, my girlfriend drops this bomb:

“Uh, babe, look at Silva’s poise, guard, and limbs. Sonnen is reckless. And…..tap.”

It was incredible. I’ve watched all 117 numbered UFC cards. That might out me as something of a fight dork, but it’s true. I’m no amateur in following this sport (don’t quiz me, I haven’t watched them all twice, but Joe Rogan’s performance on UFC 17 is something we should all watch daily as a prime example of what happens when one goes to work stoned). But naturally, my girlfriend made me feel like a jackass after the third card she ever watched. It was like my mom telling me to watch Jordan make the jumper at the end of Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, only if Karl Malone was assaulting him from behind with a crow bar. There isn’t a great cross-sport comparison, just know that I felt like a moron.

So anyway, back to tonight. We’re out at a bar and I wanted to get back to the house for the 9 PM ET start for WEC 50, a card I was nearly as excited about as the stacked UFC 117 card, which might be the greatest card in the history of the sport. Did my girlfriend, the “choke whisperer,” the one who I felt might have been empowered considering she totally made me look like an ass after the last card we watched together, a whole 11 days ago, give a shit?

Nope.

And that’s the stigma of WEC. I watched the card tonight as she slept. Great card, as always, because the lighter divisions are generally fantastic. But you can’t market a second league to casual fans on weeknights in my age demographic that have to be up at 5 AM ET and go work. If Dominic Cruz had been fighting Joseph Benavidez for the 135 lb UFC Bantamweight Championship of the world, on a Saturday night, you’d better fucking believe people like my girlfriend would care. People like me would make sure of it. But WEC is a tough sell, and it’s time to kill it.

If UFC had 7 weight classes, we wouldn’t have these awful cards where a punch-drunk Chuck Liddell faces off with an underweight Rich Franklin as a TUF finale main event. People are supposed to want to pay money for these cards, and if people like me don’t want to, then who exactly does? Over the past four years UFC has averaged 13 numbered events per year. With 7 weight classes, we could feasibly have every card contain a title fight. This is what all fans want, hardcore and casual. Dana White and the Fertitta Brothers, it is time to do everyone a favor and strengthen your flagship product with the talent you already have, as quite frankly, no one wants your secondary product.

My hometown and football

I grew up in Johnson City, TN, a mid-sized Southern town in the Appalachia segment of the Bible Belt. The church I grew up attending actually taught that the NFL played on Sundays in an attempt to distract believers from worship and hinder church attendance. One byproduct of this line of thinking is that college football, despite the level of play being generally worse than that of the NFL, is infinitely more popular. The University of Tennessee Volunteers are the athletic kings of my hometown, and everything stops on Saturdays for them. Peyton Manning visits a country club near my parents' house for a charity auction every summer, and each time he does I get 700 pictures in my email inbox from my dad of the guy wearing a goofy visor and polo shirt signing autographs for awestruck 55 year old fat guys. The local media follows Jason Witten around as if they were some sort of redneck TMZ-lite. No one cares about the Colts or the Cowboys, but everyone cares that these were Tennessee Volunteers that made it big in the NFL.

Not surprisingly, college football became my favorite sport from a very young age. Growing up, my dad wasn't as fond of the roughly two hour drive to Knoxville to fight crowds as I was, so as a compromise he bought season tickets to East Tennessee State University's fledgling I-AA program, which constituted a 7 minute drive from our house in south Johnson City. To be fair, they played indoors in an ill-conceived disaster of a football facility affectionately called the "Mini-Dome", which despite being a total failure in every way to an adult observer, was perfect for a seven year old kid to learn the ins and outs of football without my dad having to worry about weather or crowds.

I owe a lot to this program. When I was twelve, in 1996, the Bucs (yes, that's right, the geniuses from my hometown decided to name the football team located in their landlocked mountain town after pirates) went on a little bit of a tear and actually made the I-AA playoffs. In fact, they went 10-3, losing only to the national champion Marshall Thundering Herd, who jumped to I-A the following year; Montana, the national runner-up and 1 seed in the playoffs, and their money game, East Carolina. While that doesn't sound like a whole lot now, that Marshall team played in Johnson City that year at the Mini-Dome. And they had a 6'5" wide receiver no one knew. Yet.

Randy Moss. Age 19. On Astroturf. Before he won the Biletnikoff Award, was a first-round draft pick, was the catalyst for the highest scoring offense in NFL history, ran over a meter maid with his car, coined the phrase "straight cash, homey", faked mooned Green Bay Packers fans on national TV, nearly drove Joe Buck into cardiac arrest, became the most logical member of the Oakland Raiders ever cast, then set the NFL single season TD reception record as a member of the 2007 Patriots. One of the five greatest receivers ever to play the game of football and someone criminally underrated because of his pedigree and stupid off-field antics. The most dominant offensive player on two of the five best offenses in NFL history. In my town. Did I mention it was on Astroturf?

When TV analysts comment about prospects, they talk about "the eye-test". Basically, that means that a prospect looks fantastic regardless of past performance and you can see him accomplishing the same feats again against better competition. No one, and I mean no one, will ever pass the eye-test the way Randy Moss did that day against ETSU. I watched Kobe score 31 in the second half of an NBA game while on vacation in Orlando during the lockout season of 1999 and predicted the eventual three-peat as a precocious 14 year old. But Randy Moss, now that was SOMETHING.

Fast forward to the fall of 1999. My dad suddenly decided he was OK with going on road trips with me and suggested one Friday night we go to Furman the following morning to watch ETSU take them on. After all, it was only a two hour drive from Johnson City and Furman was pretty good in the SoCon, the conference ETSU played in. Of course, the Tennessee Vols were defending national champions at this time and it was a similar drive, but I won't hold that against Dad. He was much more into ETSU football than UT, and he was driving. So we go to Greenville, SC, and my college search ended before it even began. Furman became the standard I held every other college to when I visited, and I was too young and sheltered to appreciate urban college settings, so Furman was where I eventually ended up. The game itself was whatever, but it's odd how dumb things like that shape your life.

In 2003, the ETSU football program ended due to budget cuts. Interest had always been minimal thanks to the shadow of the great program in Knoxville, and rather than continue to compete with such a juggernaut of a program, the leadership of the school elected to shut it down. As I went on to get my business degree I started wondering what it would have been like if the program had been run properly. Thursday night non-conference games, $5 general admission, unrestricted parking, gimmick giveaways worth attending for, increased concession prices, and an effort to time games so that they didn't conflict with UT Vols games would have saved the program over the long term. They did none of that, which indirectly helped Appalachian State, located one hour from Johnson City in Boone, NC, become the quasi-famous I-AA juggernaut that beat Michigan in 2006 as part of a three-peat national title run. As a degree holder from ETSU (I finished my MBA there last fall) that level of modest prestige and fame would be nice. While it is highly unlikely that the program would have ever reached such heights, not even trying to do so is pretty disheartening.

I went to the last game they played in the Mini-Dome against The Citadel, and the handful of people there were very distraught about this avenue of entertainment being taken from them so unceremoniously. A lot of them undoubtedly were able to attend college because of that program. That program lives on in the NFL through the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, Mike Smith, as well as through Dallas Cowboys safety Gerald Sensabaugh, who transferred to UNC to finish his college career. While I'm not one of the 50 people still clamoring for ETSU football to return, as people didn't go to the games when it was there, the product on the field wasn't very good, and the school has adjusted to attract students that aren't concerned about football, it was a pretty special part of my growing up.

Don't Run Fat Albert Out Of Town Quite Yet

As a resident of Northern Virginia and a longtime Tennessee Titans supporter, I have been insanely entertained by the off-season "saga" involving perennial Pro Bowl defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and new Redskins Head Coach Mike Shanahan. Haynesworth has been labeled a fraud, a pariah, and a fatass by the Washington media and Redskins fans who are friends of mine for his failure to attend mandatory OTA's over the summer after receiving a $21 million roster bonus in April. This is all rather confusing to a Tennessee supporter who watched Haynesworth be the best defensive player in the entire NFL the two seasons prior to his arrival in the DMV. Now he can't even pass a shuttle run test at training camp and will not be allowed to practice until he does, which is overshadowing everything else happening at camp. While this is a shame, in the long run, this is only a symbol of the Redskins' problem, not the problem itself.

As a Titans fan, I knew that losing Haynesworth would prove to be detrimental to the success of their defense in 2009, and boy was it ever. According to pro-football-reference.com the 2008 Titans were ranked second in scoring defense at 14.6 per game, second in turnover differential at +14, and seventh in total defense. This squad managed to have the best record and scoring margin in the NFL, in spite of being 28th in passing offense. In other words, this team was defense first, running second, and passing never, a recipe that might have been effective in 1976, but hardly a traditional model of success over the past 15 years or so. In 2009, everything flipped, and the club started the season 0-6 before re-inserting Vince Young into the starting lineup and making Jeff Fisher look like the biggest idiot in the league for not doing it sooner. For the season, the Titans were 16th in scoring, roughly the same as they were in 2008. Without Haynesworth, the defense was 28th in scoring defense. 28th. Egads. No further analysis necessary.

What fueled the 2008 Titans' defensive attack was the ability to rush the passer with only the front four linemen, enabling aggressive play by the defensive backs and permitting the linebackers to cover short passes and defend the run. The defense was dominant in spite of being vanilla on a regular basis, as few blitzes were needed. As great as this defense was, only three members were invited to the Pro Bowl: Haynesworth, Cortland Finnegan, who emerged as an elite corner that season in spite of the fact that he is tiny and struggles with bigger receivers (such as Andre Johnson, who torches Finnegan and every other Titans defensive back twice a year), and Chris Hope, a strong safety who played well, but won't be confused with Ronnie Lott anytime soon. The defense had other notables, including longtime veteran standout linebacker Keith Bulluck, injury plagued but always intense defensive end Kyle Van Den Bosch, and free safety Michael Griffin, who got in the Pro Bowl as an injury replacement with seven interceptions. While this defense certainly had a lot of talent and depth, it was based on Haynesworth up front being effective. With him gone to Washington in 2009, the Titans couldn't stop a high school team and at one point lost 59-0 to the Patriots with largely the same group other than Haynesworth.

But in spite of all the greatness Haynesworth exhibited in 2007 and 2008, it was hard to justify the contract the Redskins gave him. There was no reason to pay a defensive lineman the kind of money Haynesworth received regardless of his ability or character. Haynesworth has Hall of Fame ability. I know this from having watched his two previous seasons prior to his coming to Washington in 2009. But the money the Redskins guaranteed Haynesworth could only be a good investment if he produced in the manner he produced in 2007 and 2008, years in which it could be strongly argued that the guy was the best defensive player in all of football, for the entire life of the deal. Haynesworth was age 26 at the start of the 2007 season, so the Redskins did sign him at the traditional athletic prime age of 28. Unfortunately, in football, the average career lasts a shade over 4 years, and it was clear to anyone that watched the Titans' 2008 romp through the AFC South (and their stomping of eventual Super Bowl winner Pittsburgh late in the season) that the probability of Haynesworth maintaining his outstanding form for any significant period of time wasn't great. Well, clear to anyone not working in the Redskins front office, anyway.

The Redskins have failed over the past ten years for three major reasons. One, they sign free agents to deals that are based on past performance, not forecasted future results. If Albert Haynesworth was a Pro Bowl player for the entire life of his contract, he still would be overpaid. There was no chance that Haynesworth would be able to live up to his part of the bargain. He isn't even the worst example of Snyder doing this, as at least he can still be an elite player and isn't in his thirties. The Redskins essentially paid Haynesworth for being a great Titan. Second, there is no continuity in terms of schemes or personnel, because the owner fires the front office every other season. Since Dan Snyder bought the team in 1999 the team has had seven coaches, including Steve Spurrier of my hometown, Johnson City, TN; and famed NASCAR owner Joe Gibbs (OK, that was uncalled for as he won three Super Bowls, but he'd been out of football 12 years when they hired him). There's no rhyme or reason to these hires or fires, it's all the whim of the owner. And franchises that operate on the whim of the owner rarely win anything, unless a trade involving Herschel Walker takes place that yields an insane number of draft picks (not likely anymore). Despite this ineptitude, the fanbase would rather blame a player, who came from and was a part of winning traditions at both the college and pro level, rather than ownership for creating this situation. And that brings us to the biggest major problem concerning the Redskins: the fanbase enjoys bitching about being bad, and would follow this club no matter what Snyder does. How else could a club be second in the NFL in revenues while going 4-12 last year? Snyder's making money hand over fist because no one is holding HIM accountable for running a proud franchise into the ground. When you have a cycle of enabling, you fail. The Wall Street Journal wrote last year that Washington fans were jumping ship. Clearly the author of that piece has never entered a bar in the DMV. This place is rabid for the Redskins, and that won't ever stop, no matter how long they are terrible.

Incredibly, in spite of Mike Shanahan refusing to let Haynesworth practice in training camp and learn the change to the 3-4 defense, I have a feeling Albert Haynesworth is about to show some people what he is capable of doing. What he does on the football field is command double teams and routinely beat them. In other words, he's done in a 4-3 exactly what a nose tackle does in a 3-4. Mike Shanahan has handled this situation as if he were Bear Bryant and could pull Haynesworth's scholarship on a whim at Alabama. When you hand a guy a check for $21 million, you empower him. When you hand him a check that large and at the same time say "oh, by the way, we know you've never played nose tackle in your life but that's what you're going to do for us, suck it up and come practice, we paid you and we own you", rather than sitting down with the man you've just empowered and explaining team goals, then you're asking for this situation. I'm not saying Haynesworth is right. I think he's handled this situation like a pompous, idiot athlete, and the damage to his life and career is real and permanent. But let's see what happens on the field before we draw and quarter a man who can't complete a shuttle run. As Allen Iverson once said, "we're talking about PRACTICE!"

Home Runs in the PED era

As you are undoubtedly aware, for the past six years, a series of discoveries concerning steroids and HGH in baseball has led to a witch-hunt concerning some infamous sluggers of the nineties, most notably Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro. This had led to debate, mainly from talking heads on ESPN (because the good Lord knows my friends stopped watching baseball in 1994, and I pretty much went it alone after that) about whether or not these players' numbers should be eliminated from the record book, or potentially asterisked. As with most things, the solution to this problem is mind-numbingly simple:

Take the homerun totals of the players' years of suspicion, and multiply those totals by 80 percent.

Read that again: Take the homerun totals of the players' years of suspicion, and multiply those totals by 80 percent. Now I'm sure you're thinking "wait a minute, that's just too easy, why hasn't anyone ever thought of that before?" The short answer - the sabermetricians that have essentially ruined baseball for the casual fan can't monetize a formula this simple. If it's too difficult for the casual fan to understand, it holds mystery, which causes us to follow these fools and bow to their incredible "knowledge". These guys know as much about hitting a baseball as I do...

Ta-da! Look at all the problems we solve!

1. Roger Maris gets his single season HR record back, as this extremely basic adjustment takes Barry Bonds' HR tally in 2001 from 73 down to 58, and Mark McGuire's 70 in 1998 becomes 56. I've always thought it barbarically stupid that anyone that watches sports could think that anything is more difficult than hitting major league pitching. I have zero-athletic ability whatsoever and I can still shoot a jump shot, hit a fairway (not often but it does happen), or run a fade route. Hell, when the Johnson City, TN police department decided to stick one of those dumb "Your speed is..." radar gun signs in front of my parents' house a couple years back, I managed to hit 17 mph running (I'm aware that's slow, but it's still faster than Michael Smith when he embarrassed himself "racing" Chris Johnson on E:60 last week). If I owned the Cleveland Indians like the lady in Major League, and decided that it would behoove me to play an entire 162 game season in the major leagues, my batting average would be .000. I simply would not be able to get a hit. The sport requires skill and reflexes that no amount of HGH is going to provide. Eliminating the homeruns entirely seems incredibly irresponsible, as it's not like these guys weren't participating in a high skill activity. Plus, it's not like the pitchers weren't juicing. So let's stop pretending the homeruns didn't happen, and adjust the numbers slightly to give the fair record holder his due.

2. Hank Aaron gets his career HR record back. as Barry Bonds obviously loses a bunch of his late-career homeruns. Let's face it, both Maris' and Aaron's broken records are sacred marks that should be preserved, as both of these records were achieved in the face of undue adversity unrelated to the game of baseball. Maris was persecuted because he was not considered the best player on his own team, he set the record in an expansion season, and he was lousy with the New York media. These are all pretty stupid reasons for belittling such an accomplishment, and the poor guy deserved better. As for Hank Aaron, his record came thanks to an unusually long period as one of the game's best hitters. The racism he faced both at the beginning of his career as a black minor leaguer in the South, and late in his career when approaching Babe Ruth's career mark of 714 home runs was incredible and shouldn't be forgotten. We all agree that Aaron is a class act and deserves the record more than Bonds, and this adjustment gives it back to him.

3. It penalizes the steroid users, but it doesn't irresponsibly eliminate them from the Hall of Fame discussion. There is a tendency in the media to refer to the huge numbers of homeruns that came from the PED era as "tainted". The purpose of this exercise is to "taint" the homeruns so that we can still make comparisons and have intelligent discussions about Hall of Fame players. Below is the current top 10 list of career homerun hitters, with suspected juicers in red and homeruns unadjusted, plus the rest of the suspected or known juicers and non-suspected players from the steroid era in the top 20:

1. Barry Bonds 762
2. Hank Aaron 755
3. Babe Ruth 714
4. Willie Mays 660
5. Ken Griffey, Jr. 630
6. Sammy Sosa 609
7. Alex Rodriguez 599
8. Frank Robinson 586
9. Mark McGuire 583
10. Jim Thome 576
12. Rafael Palmeiro 569
14. Manny Ramirez 554
18. Frank Thomas 521


So obviously at this point it's time to adjust the homeruns and remake the list. But before we do, there's one glaring problem looking at this list - why exactly have we absolved Griffey, Thome, and Thomas from cheating, besides the fact that none of them have ever been associated with any ties to PEDs? With Griffey, his injury problems and relatively light physique make it hard to believe he ever cheated. Thome is an enormous man who could have gone either way, but his career follows a traditional arc, where he peaked from ages 29-32, with no enormous power surge, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Frank Thomas was built like an NFL defensive end, and his vocal pointing of the finger at his contemporaries for their cheating smells like a rat to me. But he's not even in the top 15, so it's almost irrelevant to include him in the witch hunt anyway. This leaves six players to adjust.

Barry Bonds: The most egregious and infamous abuser of baseball's moronic steroid policies of his era, Bonds is still without a doubt the best player of his era, and should be an absolute first-ballot Hall of Famer. The dirty period of Bonds' career is the easiest to spot amongst the six juicers. In 1998, when Sosa and McGuire were exchanging awkward man hugs and taking a huge dump on the Maris family, Bonds posted a "forgettable" .303-37-122, with 130 walks, 28 steals, and an OPS of 1.047 (which is really, really good). The man wasn't just trying to get it done without cheating, he WAS getting it done without cheating, and no one cared, then or now. He was EIGHTH in the NL MVP voting with a season that could have won the award both before and after the steroid era. It's no damn wonder the guy cheated, and it's a shame he had to in order to remain the game's best player. Taking this into consideration, it makes total sense that he was an absolute dick to everyone around him, which didn't help his cause. Looking at his numbers, it makes sense to accuse Bonds of PED use in the seasons from 1999 to 2004, as injuries and a subsequent drop in production coupled with increased awareness of PED use in baseball starting with the 2005 season make it unlikely he was continuing to juice at that point. So:

Year HR AdjHR
1999 34 27
2000 49 39
2001 73 58
2002 46 37
2003 45 36
2004 45 36
Total 292 233

762 - (292-233) = 703

This seems about right, and puts him comfortably behind Aaron and Ruth, and comfortably ahead of his godfather, the great Willie Mays, while preserving his status as an all-time great and the best player from this era of baseball. Third all-time is a very reasonable expectation for Bonds if the PED era never occurred, and that's where I consider him to actually be.

Sammy Sosa: the man who forgot English. What a con-artist this guy turned out to be. At least Bonds managed seven consecutive 33 HR seasons before he had to start juicing, in no small part because of this idiot. Thankfully, this means he loses the most homeruns from the 80% idea, as he happens to be the guy that juiced predominantly in his prime. Sosa became an all-star caliber player in 1993 when he managed the first of his two 30-30 seasons. The second 30-30 season in 1995 was particularly impressive as he managed the feat in only 144 games, which was every game in a strike-shortened season. My point is, he was a fleet footed, balanced, natural superstar in the making. Then, in 1996, he goes 40-18 in only 124 games? If that doesn't scream "unnatural change in body chemistry", then I don't know why you're still reading this long-ass hypothetical blog post. In 1997, he plays the entire 162 games and hits "only" 36 HR, but this has less to do with PEDs and more to do with striking out 174 times in a season with only 161 hits, which looks like a slump to me, not evidence he wasn't juicing.

Then, his golden era arrives in 1998-2002, where he posts the best 5 year HR stretch of all time. 66, 63, 50, 64, 49. Thank god we're taking 20 percent of all of those away, because that's just ridiculous. The most insane thing about that stretch - the 66 in 1998, the 63 in 1999, and the 64 in 2001 all failed to lead the National League thanks to McGuire and Bonds.

Age and injuries reduce his season totals to 40 in 2003 and 35 in 2004, but in those seasons he still posts a HR every 13 at bats, which is legendary, and thus suspect. Therefore we assume he juiced from the seasons 1996-2004, the longest stretch of anybody on this list:

Year HR AdjHR
1996 40 32
1997 36 29
1998 66 53
1999 63 50
2000 50 40
2001 64 51
2002 49 39
2003 40 32
2004 35 28
Total 443 354

609 - (443-354) = 520

That's one less homerun than Ted Williams, Frank Thomas, and Willie McCovey. Sounds about right to me. It's also enough of a deduction to keep the guy out of the Hall of Fame, as he shouldn't be there. He turned himself from a multi-tooled, versatile outfielder into a one-dimensional home run machine that struck out a lot, and didn't do it naturally. Obviously he made more money that way, but he can't seriously be considered a Hall of Famer.

Alex Rodriguez: the most important name on this list, as he stands a fair chance of passing everyone even with adjusted numbers. A-Rod has admitted to using PEDs from 2001-2003, his years with the Texas Rangers, as he felt great pressure to deliver huge numbers as a result of signing the biggest contract in pro sports at the time, a 10 year doozy worth at least $250 million. Judging by the numbers, that sounds reasonable. He led the American League in homeruns all three of those seasons, posting 52, 57, and 47 in those years. He then was traded to the Yankees and his numbers dipped considerably in the following years in spite of those years being his prime years (age 28-30). This was explained at the time as an inability to handle the pressure of the New York spotlight, but adjusting to a lack of PEDs makes infinitely more sense in retrospect. Then, at age 31, he blasted 54 HRs seemingly out of nowhere. These things happen, and for it to happen once for an all-time great I'm willing to accept. So I accept that A-Rod's PED use ended in 2003.

What I don't accept is that he started PED use for the 2001 season. The game changed in 1998 with the McGuire/Sosa chase, and I suspect that A-Rod began using starting with the 1999 season. In 1998, A-Rod led the American League in hits and had the third 40-40 season in major league history. Even I didn't know this before I looked it up, that's how obscured it was by SI's 1998 "Sportsmen of the Year", McGuire and Sosa. Much like Barry Bonds, A-Rod gets no credit for having an MVP caliber 1998 season. Thus, it makes the most sense that he would have began PED usage for the 1999 season and continued it through the 2003 season. In 1999 A-Rod's HR per at bat jumped from 1 per 16.2 in 1998 to 1 per 11.9 in 1999, while his stolen bases drop from 46 in 161 games to 21 in 129, an enormous drop. Thus, I argue he juiced from 1999-2003, not the previously admitted 2001-2003. Thus his adjustment reads:

Year HR AdjHR
1999 42 34
2000 41 33
2001 52 42
2002 57 46
2003 47 38
Total 239 193

599 - (239-193) = 553

Those 46 missing homeruns mean he has to finish his career with 802 homeruns in order for me to consider him the home run king, with 801 putting him into a tie with Hank Aaron. I don't know if he can get to 802, but that's what he has to do to convince me he's the all-time leader. I also like that at age 34 he's already surpassed Sosa and McGuire, the two jackasses most responsible for this mess. By adjusting him this way, his career still has great relevance, and we can handicap him enough to not celebrate 763 if he gets there. 802 is such a gaudy number that if he gets there, he would undoubtedly deserve the top spot.

Mark McGuire: In his comments concerning his juicing, he admitted that he turned to PEDs initially because he was having difficulty returning from injury and he need help to get back on the field. It's hard to blame a guy for doing that when the option was there. McGuire managed to only play in 74 games total in 1993-1994, and looked finished, so it's obvious when reading between the lines that he began juicing for the 1995 season, and did not stop until his career ended in 2001. During that time he homered once every 8.24 at bats.

Once every 8.24 at bats. I've seen Home Run Derbies with lousier production and this guy was hitting people that were trying to get him out. Obviously, he has to be adjusted just like everyone else that juiced, but that's still a ridiculous number to read. Anyway, his adjustment:

Year HR AdjHR
1995 39 31
1996 52 42
1997 58 46
1998 70 56
1999 65 52
2000 32 26
2001 29 23
Total 345 276

583 - (345-276) = 514

But wait. Didn't Jose Canseco (whose adjustment consists solely of multiplying 462 by .8, thus making him the easiest person to play this game with, and giving him the biggest penalty of anyone, including Sammy Sosa) claim that McGuire juiced with him when they were teammates? Canseco left the Oakland A's in 1992, putting McGuire's entire early career under scrutiny as well. McGuire hit 49 HRs as a rookie in 1987, then didn't top that until 1996. In fact, McGuire's batting average from 1989-1991 was so bad that 28 percent of his hits were homeruns during that period (94 of 333). Either he was the worst hitter in baseball (which I doubt, as he's now a major league batting coach) or he wasn't juicing then. There's just not a lot of statistical anomaly to suggest that he got a boost from PEDs in his early career. Maybe he was taking them, but they weren't working, so what's the problem? Regardless, I think this does enough damage to his case to keep him out of the Hall of Fame, as without the gaudy HR totals he was just an average player, even worse than Sosa. With this adjustment he falls behind Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell, and Rafael Palmeiro into the Fred McGriff tier of first basemen.

Rafael Palmeiro. I have no idea which years you would consider suspicious when talking about ol' Raffy, as I barely even remember him as a player. From 1995-2003 he hit at least 38 HRs EVERY YEAR, and he was age 30-38 for this stretch, which is late prime to past prime, so that probably should be something of a red flag. His career batting average is .288, which is favorable, and he had more walks than strikeouts for his career, joining Bonds as the only members of this discussion to pull that off, so he obviously was a very good hitter. His HR per AB rate is not gaudy, as he was a very durable player. Also, he is the only player in this discussion with 3000 hits, and I had no idea that was the case either. My theory is, he used PEDs later in his career to maintain bat speed, Of course, I have no idea, I don't remember him. At all. I remember a great mustache, and that's it. So let's assume he started at age 33 when his athletic prime was over, which not so shockingly occurred in, you guessed it, 1998.

Year HR AdjHR
1998 43 34
1999 47 38
2000 39 31
2001 47 38
2002 43 34
2003 38 30

I ended it in 2003 for two reasons. First, his numbers dropped significantly in 2004. Second, he left Texas and A-Rod after the 2003 season so his PED contacts may have dried up. Wait, what am I saying? He couldn't find drugs in Baltimore? Naaaaa.

2004 23 18
Total 280 223

569 - (280-223) = 512

3000 hits and 500 HRs is a Hall of Famer. Every time. This brings up something though.

What effects should adjusted HRs have across the rest of the stat sheet?

Well, I figure that runs are a part of the final score, and thus the outcome of the games that were played, and we aren't scratching that from the books are we? We're just trying to compare the era of PEDs with the rest of the history of baseball, so that we can more objectively decide who gets into the Hall of Fame, and can stop with this "he cheated once so he can't get in" baloney that the media has jammed down our throats for the past 5 years. You know, the same media that looked the other way when it was obviously happening in the first place. So the solution I came up with, like most good solutions, is very simple.

Adjusted HRs count as singles.

This solves two problems. First, it allows us to keep on base percentages, batting averages, and hits intact, so Raffy still has his 3000 hits. Second, it allows us to basically keep RBI the same, only we take one RBI away for each HR we take away, and assume the runner eventually scores. Because advanced stats have basically thrown away the RBI, there is no problem doing this either, and we can subtract the same number of RBI as we do HR, which is a little skewed, but the only people that care about that are the sabermetricians, who only want to nitpick anyway. The only stat that is significantly affected is slugging, and by virtue, OPS. Fortunately, this is a pretty simple recalculation that allows for post-PED season comparison. Barry Bonds provides the best example, as he has the both the best OPS in clean years and in PED years. In 1998 Bonds put up a 1.047 OPS as described earlier. This is derived by adding his .438 on base percentage with his .609 slugging. In 2001, his 73 HR year, he has a .515 on base percentage and slugged .863, for a 1.379 OPS. If you adjust his 73 HRs to 58, you turn 15 HRs into singles, which changes his slugging percentage from .863 to .768, thus changing his OPS to 1.284. So the impact on OPS through this adjustment is tangible, but hardly catastrophic.

Manny Ramirez: Like Raffy, it's hard to know when he started juicing, but we do know that he served a suspension in 2009 for "human chorionic gonadtropin," which is supposed to make your ovaries rumble. Or something. Thus, unlike the rest of these guys, we have to take his juice period through 2009, which is going to do some serious damage. Manny was also on the infamous list of 104 players that tested positive for PEDs that wasn't supposed to be leaked from 2003. So by that logic he was definitely juicing in 2003, so we have a seven year period so far. Looking at the numbers, I saw something intriguing. In 1997, Manny hit 26 HR and 40 doubles for an AL pennant winner that also had three players hit 30 HR (Thome, Matt Williams, and David Justice), an absolutely monster lineup. Manny did not need to juice to help a team where he was fourth in the lineup in HRs. The 1998 lineup was significantly crappier, and Manny's numbers jump out like a sore thumb. 45 HRs, 35 doubles. Sounds to me like a guy who got some help. This is troubling because this gives Manny an unprecedented 12 year juice window. He's such a gifted hitter that it's possible that he did it naturally, and he was just entering his prime in 1998, but because it was 1998 it's very difficult to believe that this jump occurred naturally. His slugging jumped in 1999 as his batting average caught up with his new found power, and this laid the foundation for Manny being the best hitter in the American League through his prime.

Year HR AdjHR
1998 45 36
1999 44 35
2000 38 30
2001 41 33
2002 33 26
2003 37 30
2004 43 34
2005 45 36
2006 35 28
2007 20 16
2008 37 30
2009 19 15
Total 437 349

554 - (437-349) = 466

Considering his batting titles, his role on two famous championship teams, and the fact that he's not done and could get to 500 HR post-adjustment, Manny is probably still a Hall of Famer.

I'm aware that this probably isn't the ideal solution. But it's easy to follow, it's easy to calculate, and it has a real purpose. I'm also aware that OPS was invented by sabermetricians. If you feel more strongly about PED usage than I do, feel free to use a different multiplier, as I chose 80 percent because it gives the records back to the pre-PED holders without further belittling the accomplishments of the era.

Baseball-reference.com deserves a huge mention for making this post possible. Great site.

Sucks To Be Me....

Well, near you if you don't live in California, New England, New York, or the DC Metro area. Guess I'm SOL, and I guess you probably are too.

My pre-Preseason Super Bowl winner

Since early February, a puzzling trend has emerged in American professional sports. It appears the number of championships a team can win in a given year is directly proportional to the number of Kardashian sisters the team is dating. This began with Reggie Bush winning the Super Bowl as a member of the “Who Dat” Saints while dating Kim, and continued with Khloe’s husband Lamar taking home another ring with the Lakers a few weeks ago. Until proven otherwise, I have to respect the Kardashian = Champion corollary, heretofore known as the “Gluteus Champious” theorem, and crown the Dallas Cowboys the Super Bowl winners thanks to Miles Austin’s present dalliance with Kim. If they break up at any point during the season, the favorites become the New Orleans Saints, as they were the last team to employ a “BOK” (boyfriend of Kardashian). Football Outsiders have their DVOA ratings, but “Kardashian boyfriends on the roster” is not measured by any official statistics, ultimately rendering said statistics useless.

This will prove to be a very extreme test case for the Gluteus Champious theorem, as the Cowboys are led by an erratic choke artist/fantasy savant in quarterback Tony Romo, and an ultra-conservative, ultra-stoic head coach Wade Phillips (who in fact, is so boring I could not find one video entertaining enough to link to). Combined, these two have managed to win nothing, and lose via upset a whole lot. However, this season that will all change. Or at the very least, this improbable mash of pop culture and sports can finally be put to rest.

Adventures in YouTube

So today I decided to write my pre-Preseason Super Bowl prediction, and while doing a bit of “research” concerning my favorite team, the Tennessee Titans (who by the way are not my pre-Preseason Super Bowl pick), I discovered a troubling trend on a site we all know and love, YouTube.

As part of this piece I tried to find out who hit Chris Johnson on the play that took him out of the divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens in the 2008-09 playoffs, as I couldn’t remember (I watched that game on a crap TV in a dive hotel in New Orleans, and was completely hammered by the middle of the second quarter, so bear with me). When I went to YouTube to see if I could find video evidence of the hit, I was delighted to see that a bunch of dorks had bombarded YouTube with clips of their Titans-Ravens matchups on Madden. Seriously, no one wants to watch your video game memories, not even you. The only video game clips that are acceptable are the speed Mario clips from talented dorks in Japan, or the kid that simultaneously worked a Rubik’s Cube while beating Mr. Crowley on Guitar Hero. Now THAT’S entertainment.

So naturally I click on a link that said “Baltimore Ravens fans take over in Nashville Tennessee and beat the Titans in the playoff game,” thinking it might have the hit that knocked Johnson out of the game. Nope, it was just four drunken idiots “rioting” outside LP Field. I haven’t read the Riot Act lately, but I don’t think four people yelling and pumping their fists qualifies as a riot. Also, I would love to see these jackasses actually try to “beat the Titans in the playoff game”. It would be acceptable penance for releasing such a sucky video onto the unsuspecting public.

Another odd thing I noticed was the surprising percentage of videos that consisted solely of a fat guy on a couch wearing a jersey providing his picks for that weekend’s playoff games. If you’re looking for people to watch your videos, you need to find a hot girl to read this stuff, it can still be your pick opinions and you can even introduce the girl. The point is, we have enough unattractive people in our lives. We don’t need one more.

So I eventually find a comprehensive reel of highlights from the game. As for the hit that knocked Johnson out of the game? Not included. The most important play of that game and it’s not even mentioned. Sports media, everybody! I still have no idea who made that hit.

The origin of Wine Farts

So, as you might be aware, the economy fell into the toilet and has pretty much stayed there for the past three years, which has caused unemployment to reach double digit percentages. While at first the effects of this so called "economic downturn" did not impact me much, over time I ended up a part of the unemployed masses for reasons too boring to discuss. Thus, I have been forced to find alternate sources of libation from my typical, expensive favorite drink, beer. I know what you're thinking - "isn't beer typically cheaper than wine," or alternately, "this guy is a moron". I agree on both counts. However, the beer I drink isn't the can swill manufactured by huge multinational corporations that make funny ads around Super Bowl time to appeal to ex-jocks named Bubba (not that there's anything wrong with that). No, my tastes are highly refined, and I'm forced to spend nearly two dollars a bottle on beer! Two dollars a bottle! How is a broke person supposed to afford that?

So naturally a few months back I'm wandering around the grocery store aimlessly like one of the Dawn of the Dead zombies and I see that you can buy big bottles of high powered Merlot (I'm talking 14% ABV, or like 4 times Miller Lite) for uber cheap. This excited me greatly, so I walked over to the Credit Union, took out a personal loan, and took a few of these bad boys back to my 1993 Toyota Previa van for rapid consumption. It went down, albeit not very smoothly. OK, it's far from tasty, but in a pinch, it got the job done.

The next morning, I woke up to what smelled like a cross between sulfur, marsh water, nacho cheese, and blood. None of these things were in the van, so you can imagine my initial confusion. I got out of the van and started searching for clues, when I suddenly started farting uncontrollably (I’m sure you’re beginning to think I’m providing way too much information but I swear there’s a method to this madness). The smell from the van emerged, and I immediately knew that the smell was in fact a result of my one-man debauchery from the night before.

The smell was so awful that I decided that all things in this world that stink, whether they be Albert Haynesworth’s handling of being moved to nose tackle, Lindsay Lohan’s rehab attempts, Tim Sylvia, beach port-a-johns, Korean food, all seasons of 24 after Jack is sent to China, and of course, LeBron’s decision, can be characterized as being Wine Farts. Sitting back and whining about these things doesn’t make them go away or change them in any way, so I figure I might as well have some fun with them. Kind of like I had some fun with the wine before my body turned it into farts. Really stinky farts.