There's a time and a place, and other news

Chiefs remove Gailey as offensive coordinator
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Three games into the preseason, and Chan Gailey's out as Chiefs offensive coordinator. While one could argue that it's better to make this sort of move now rather than in-season (in fact, my friend just made this argument, which inspired this post), that argument misses the point that it would have made far more sense to have made this move when the new regime took over in the offseason.

Todd Haley's a first-time head coach, whose role as o-coordinator for the overachieving AZ Cardinals Super Bowl team last year made him a trendy-enough pick to overshadow a series of public personality clashes with his receivers in Dallas and Arizona. The NFL's so obsessed with the Next Big Thing; the success of first-timers John Harbaugh (Ravens) and Mike Smith (Falcons) had a bunch of teams searching for first-year guys of their own this offseason, which I think led to guys like Haley and Josh McDaniels (Broncos) getting their shot a little prematurely, particularly in Haley's case--I don't think you can just gloss over those spats he had with T.O. and Anquan Boldin (I give him until Week 8 to alienate Larry Johnson, which isn't hard to do, but still...). Anyway, I find it hard to believe that a first-timer like Haley didn't have his own guy in mind to bring with him as offensive coordinator. How does Haley get his big shot and stand pat with Gailey, the guy who coordinated one of the worst teams in the league last year (2-14 record), whose offense was seventh-worst (291 points scored), all under a blundering head coach best remembered for the fact that, hel-LO?! He PLAYS. To WIN. THE GAME.??? Maybe I'm still biased against Gailey for his inability to make the most of Troy Aikman's twilight years as Cowboys head coach in the late 1990s; regardless, I don't see how Haley didn't bring in his own guy. Now he'll really have no one to pin blame on if the offense keeps sucking, which, whether behind Matt Cassel (just injured), Brodie Croyle (really?), or Tyler Thigpen (double-really?), it probably will.

In other news, Vin Scully just broke news of two huge acquisitions during the game. Jim Thome and Jon Garland are now Dodgers. They just showed Garland being escorted from the DBacks' dugout. Thome has always annoyed me for some reason that may have no more weight behind it than the fact that I hate the Phillies and don't like the way he wears his socks, just as I've always liked Garland for reasons equally unknown. I think that one goes back to my '04 or '05 fantasy baseball team. Fortunately, the Dodgers didn't trade away anyone good, but that's more because they don't have anyone good left who isn't already on the 40-man. Gotta love Colletti's persistent approach of trying to solve holes in the roster by throwing as many players as possible at them. By that, I mean I don't love it; that's the kind of approach that leads to a close trading relationship with the Devil Rays before they were good, or inviting Esteban Loaiza to Spring Training and letting him have too many starts, or anything having to do with Mark Sweeney. At least these latest moves don't seem as half-baked as many of the others; I'm willing to see them out.

P.S. Darn it, Rusty Ryal. Who names a kid Rusty without it being short for anything? Apparently, Mark Ryal does. Dodgers down 4-3 in the 10th now. Blah.

EDIT: That same friend has already pointed out that, because Haley's an offense guy, the assumption was that the offense was already going to be largely his product anyway, or he'd be heavily involved at the very least. Yes, that may be true, but if anything, that makes the attempt to go into the season with Gailey even more questionable. If it was just a wait-and-see, maybe-this-can-work approach, then I think Gailey has a long enough track record in the NFL for Haley and GM Scott Pioli to know Gailey's and Haley's offensive styles aren't very compatible in advance of this little experiment. Either Haley should have brought in his own guy, or he should have just had full reign from the start. All I'm saying is the Chiefs shouldn't have had to make this move this close to the regular season.

Welcome back, Brad Penny?

Apparently, the Red Sox have released former Dodger (and Marlin) Brad Penny, and two of the three National League teams interested in him are in the West. I say let the Rockies or Giants have him. Welcome back, even. Apart from a couple of great Opening Day starts, he was worthless, and I wouldn't mind the Dodgers facing him a few times down the stretch. If I had to make a list of my least favorite Dodgers since 2002, he'd hold a pretty high ranking on it. In fact, now that I've mentioned it, here's the list:

A Sporting Blog's 10 Most-Hated* Dodgers Since 2002:

• Tie: 1. J.D. Drew: Give a crap for once, and stop looking at strike 3. Jerk.

• Tie: 1. Andruw Jones: @#$%&!!

• 3. Jeromy Burnitz: I like to remember him as "No-Hitz Burnitz." To be more exact, "No-Hitz-Except-for-Solo-Home-Runs-After-the-Dodgers-Have-Already-Fallen-Irreparably-Behind" Burnitz.

• 4. Shawn Green: Was it the bleach-white batting gloves? Was it the penchant for grounding into double plays? Or was it the refusal to get his uniform dirty, all of his outfield dives punctuated by a sort of weak fall forward accompanied by a grimace?

• 5. Brad Penny: Get everyone's hopes up with a great Opening Day/Week start. Get injured and suck (in interchangeable order). Repeat.
  

• 6. Mark Sweeney: How can one make an entire career out of pinch hitting when one never actually gets any hits as a pinch hitter? On top of that, he called out Matt Kemp and some of the other youngsters for not deferring to his veteran presence? I'm sorry not everyone wants to listen to you talk about how to have an OPS+ of 12. To top it off, I still have to see his bald mug on the Dodgers post-game show.

• 7. Juan Pierre: Five years. $9M per. Vin Scully once said of Pierre's arm during a game, "He tries, but he just can't do it." When will it end?

• 8. Daryle Ward: He slugged .193 with the Dodgers and always looked like he was hungry for cheeseburgers. The day he hit for the cycle with the Pirates ranks among the most high-incredulity moments of my life.

• 9. Odalis Perez: Two or three near no-hitters ruined by Shawn Green's unwillingness to make a play aside (see #4 above), no Dodgers pitcher in recent memory has come up smaller in big games, and then had the gall to blame his teammates anyway. He would define "Clubhouse Cancer" if not for Mark Sweeney (see #5). Getting released by the Nationals for not showing up to spring training seems a fitting end to this career.

• 10. Randy Wolf: He might be the most irrational item on this list. Maybe it's the resemblance to Ron Howard, but I don't feel comfortable relying on him in a big situation, even though he's pitched better than anyone else on the Dodgers' staff for the past month or so. He always seems to slip up just enough not to win. Wolf's slew of no-decisions aren't the same as Derek Lowe's slew of no-decisions the previous four seasons. It's a qualitative judgment based on my own observations, but I'll stand by it.
  

Honorable mention:

• 1. Brent Mayne: Dodgers were supposed to swing a 3-way with Arizona in the LoDuca trade in 2004 to get Charles Johnson, but he didn't want to come back to LA, so the Dodgers got stuck with Brent Mayne. What a black hole.

• 2. Ex-Rays: It's not their fault Ned Colletti was dumb enough to trade for them in 2006 (only to re-trade many of them only a few months into the season), but good grief. Toby Hall, you didn't play because you weren't better than Russell Martin at the time. Danys Baez, no one liked you because you sucked.

• 3. Luis Gonzalez: D-back pinhead.

• 4. Ricky Ledee: He sucked and had the face of a burnt lobster to boot.

*I say most-hated rather than most-disliked because, while I generally try very hard to like people and not throw around the word "hate" lightly when it comes to people (vs. things), these guys made/make me irrational to the point that "hate" is a better description. For example, I feel like if I were to meet Andruw Jones on the street, I'd kick him in the face.

More on punting at Cowboys Stadium

ESPN.com NFL East blogger Matt Mosley recaps last night's inaugural (preseason) game at new Cowboys Stadium, including some humorous notes on the punting incident: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/nflnation/0-10-259/Jerry-s-open-house-a-huge-success--owner-says.html. I'm with Jerry on this one: the board stays, and people need to punt around it. For everything Jerry may be, no one has ever questioned his knack for putting on a show.

About to head to Dodger Stadium to see knuckleballer Charlie Haeger in person. It continues to amaze me that there are still pitchers out there actively attempting to be knuckleballers because they always strike me as such novelties, curiosities even. Whatever gets you to the big leagues, I suppose.

Bigger is better and other Cowboys observations

Troy Aikman, how I've missed you. Watching the Cowboys' preseason game vs. Tennessee, and the new stadium looks gorgeous, much-touted field-length HD big-screen included. Holy cow, it's big--definitely does Texas and the Cowboys justice. As big as it is, Jerry Jones has asserted repeatedly that it's high enough never to interfere with play, but half-way through the third quarter in the very first game played on the new grounds, a Titans punt hit it and dropped dead around midfield, and I thought it was AMAZING. You'd think something like that would be considered a quirk of the field of play and ruled the football equivalent of baseball's ground-rule double (what would that be?), but instead, in what continues to become ever-more-stifling NFL protocol, it was ruled a replay of the down. That's probably the right decision--can you imagine every other team in the league putting up some huge obstruction in the name of enhancing home-field advantage? Could have had an interesting wrinkle with that. And yes, I'll readily admit you'd never hear the end of it were we talking about FedEx Field and the Redskins instead.

As for the game itself, I can't tell you happy I am to have Mat McBriar back. Bill Parcells always touted the importance of winning the field-position battle and not neglecting "hidden yardage," and McBriar's season-ending injury against the Cards last year was a hugely-overlooked factor in the Cowboys' second-half decline last year. I suppose teams can survive with mediocre punters, but once you've had a Pro Bowl punter, you recognize the difference a guy like that makes. What were the other big factors? I'd rank them in the following order:

1. Kyle Kosier's injury: No team can survive a hole at left guard. Kosier went down, and suddenly the running game declined, and Romo/Johnson got sacked more often. Good thing in all that was finally arriving at a verdict on Cory Procter: back-up.
2. Felix Jones's injury: Nothing excited me more about the Cowboys in training camp last year than watching them install plays for Felix Jones. Lots of screens, backfield motion, lining up in the slot, and lining up alongside Marion Barber rather than always spelling him. He proved his worth immediately, averaging almost nine yards per carry in the five games he played. He's more dynamic than Barber, and the Cowboys missed that element until "discovering" Tashard Choice toward the end of the season.
3. Brad Johnson: It was pretty obvious in training camp that Johnson had nothing left, so I don't know why the Cowboys went into the season with just two quarterbacks on the roster. You'd like to think your backup could at least perform serviceably if called upon--you know, go at least .500 if your starter's going to miss a few weeks--but Johnson was so unserviceable that the Cowboys had to sign Brooks Bollinger. Brooks. Bollinger. Johnson displayed about as much field awareness as Drew Bledsoe, repeatedly held onto the ball too long, and couldn't throw a pass longer than 10 yards. It was like having to line up permanently in the red zone, only without the immediate possibility of scoring: short field, receivers all crammed into the small space in which Johnson could actually throw. What a failure.
4. Tony Romo: Reason #3 makes no sense without at least mentioning Romo. Already lacking Kosier and Jones, Romo's pinky injury vs. Arizona causing him to miss four weeks basically ended the Cowboys' season in week 6. Then, he came back with the team dynamic a shambles, not completely healed, lacking run support, and unable to find decent protection from his line. Of course, still hurt and with all the pressure on him to play savior, he reverted sickeningly often to the Favrian tendencies Parcells always hoped to exorcise. Not to mention all the drama, which I won't because I think that stuff's overrated even though Troy himself disagrees.
5. Poor tackling: I like to attribute this to the fact that the Cowboys practiced without pads for most of training camp, which obviously meant no tackling. I got it from a first-hand source that some of the players appreciated the rest, but were concerned re: the lack of practice with respect to their tackling. It showed. Sloppy, undisciplined season for the defense. Why's discipline always a problem for the Cowboys on both sides of the ball? Topic for another day, perhaps.
   
6. Jason Garrett may have gone to Princeton, but he can't make adjustments: speaks for itself.
   

Anyway, glad McBriar's back. Now I'll wait and see whether Nick Folk starts landing his kickoffs inside the five.

How convenient

While listening to the Dodgers' blatantly-homer, yes-man postgame show, my thoughts naturally turned to today's hero, Russell Martin. I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of days lamenting the premature decline of what was once a promising career; after I heaped half the blame for the Dodgers' 3-2 loss to the Cardinals last night on his throwing error in the 9th inning, Martin went and made me look temporarily foolish tonight by grand-slamming L.A. to a 7-3 win over the Cubs. (In case you're wondering, 30 percent of the blame went to Clayton Kershaw for his poor start, 10 percent went to Jonathan Broxton for blowing the game following Martin's error, and 10 percent went elsewhere, obviously. This is all very scientific.)

Where the post-game show, Martin, and my lamenting come together is in the commentators' now-trite prediction that tonight's grand slam could prove the turning point in the catcher's season (.261 avg/.362 OBP/.685 OPS with 3 HR and 34 RBI before tonight). Unfortunately, I just don't think it's going to happen this year, and it wouldn't surprise me if he never turned it around. Do the math on that OPS, and you'll figure a slugging percentage of .323: he's become a singles hitter of Cesar Izturis proportions (no, really: check it out). Losing 70 points in slugging in two straight seasons will understandably set off the roider flag for a lot of people, but I honestly think we can attribute the power decline to the sheer volume of innings he's caught since coming up in 2006. It's not like his former home runs have started to fall dead at the warning track--he's almost a pure groundball hitter now, and while he still has a very good eye, he's got a much slower bat.

Martin's worn down, his workload both culminating in and exemplified by his appearance in the 2008 All-Star Game, when he caught 10 innings despite the fact that Brian McCann was still available. Ten innings in the ALL-STAR GAME for a guy whose only "rest" the previous two seasons consisted of switching to third base for a few innings here and there. Obviously, those 10 innings didn't do him in all on their own, but I remember feeling angry at the time and thinking it was a perfect encapsulation of the way his managers have abused him. This was a purely observational opinion, but the good folks at Fan Graphs recently provided statistical vindication. (If you don't regularly read Fan Graphs ..., stop reading this, and go read Fan Graphs.)

Overusing Russell Martin quickly became one of the consistencies between the tenures of Grady Little and Joe Torre, and under those two managers, Martin has caught the most innings in the majors since his call-up. I remember Torre using John Flaherty a lot more often behind Jorge Posada with the Yankees during my college years; a logical explanation would seem to be lack of confidence in Martin's backups, but Torre sure gave a lot of at-bats to guys like Mark Sweeney without any proof of performance last year. Now that the Dodgers have a viable back-up catcher in Brad Ausmus for the first time since David Ross's fluke year supporting Paul LoDuca in 2003, Martin has rested a bit more this year (fifth in at-bats among catchers going into tonight), but I don't think he can uncatch all of those innings, and I don't think I'm alone among Dodger fans who would have rather taken their lumps with Toby Hall, Mike Lieberthal, and Danny Ardoin once every 10 days than have to see our young all-star worn down so quickly.

What can the Dodgers do about it, though? Russell's one of my favorites--I'm half-Mexican, and we Mexican girls love our Dodgers catchers--but his performance has dropped off to what I think is such an irreparable level that I wouldn't be completely sorry to see him go. Unfortunately, the Ned Colletti Brain Trust threw the Dodgers' best catching prospect into the Casey Blake trade last year instead of paying $2M more of Blake's salary, and because Carlos Santana is now the top prospect in the Indians organization, I'm bracing for a lot more dead worms in the Dodger Stadium infield for the foreseeable future. At least Torre has finally stopped confusing Matt Kemp for Martin and batting Kemp eighth.

I just couldn't take it anymore

I'd been meaning to start this blog for about a year now, but deciding on a title, finding motivation to write consistently, and a few other things had gotten in the way... until this. While the picture at right, kindly sent to me by my colleague John Paul, pretty much speaks for itself, why should I let it speak for itself when I can rant about its subject at great length instead? In fact, one of my top five reasons for starting this blog is to provide an outlet for my Brett Favre tirades because I'm pretty sure everyone who knows me is sick of hearing them.

This latest flip-flop raises the same questions I've asked on an annual basis since the first time Favre threatened retirement 4-5 years ago. Can he really not stay away? Can he really not function without the hourly press conferences and all eyes focused on him? Is he afraid he'll forget what it feels like to throw carelessly off his back foot into triple coverage? A year ago, I wondered whether he just missed the outrageous, irrational lovefest that characterized Packers fans' feelings toward him, but now that he's successfully put an end to that, what's left?

It can't be concern for his legacy that keeps him coming back. Between the fact that he hasn't been a decent playoff quarterback since before the 2001-2002 season and the way he's shamelessly held on through multiple injuries to mow down every longevity-based record in the book, or maybe the way he deliberately, and very publicly, refused to mentor Aaron Rodgers, or maybe the way he has openly tried to gain revenge on the franchise--and, consequently, the fanbase--that let him hold on too long in the first place, I would argue he doesn't have a legacy left to tarnish. One Super Bowl victory 12 years ago and three consecutive MVPs in a between-era talent vacuum? Check the numbers on Kurt Warner, and you'll find a strikingly similar career trajectory for a much more humble, likable guy. If one draws out Favre's credentials over what's become a longer and longer career and examines them within the context of the extreme self-interest that has marked his last five years in (and out) of the NFL, I think he has to at least question whether Favre's a first-ballot Hall of Famer anymore. It would be hard to believe Brett Favre hasn't thought of this, but he just might be that blinded by his own self-concept. Think about it.