Random after-midnight thoughts

I was inspired to rattle off some shallow thoughts after chatting with an old friend who panned the Cowboys' choice of Demarcus Ware over Shawne Merriman at the time in 2005, calling to mind this post from last year. Also, "After Midnight" is one of Clapton's worst songs. On that note, the Lakers' second straight title aside, the other teams I support have conspired to make this one of the most unhappy years in my 20-plus-year sporting memory:


Colt McCoy got injured early in the BCS National Championship game, and Garrett Gilbert isn't going to take the Longhorns anywhere over the next three years.

The Cowboys ended the 2009 season by winning their first playoff game since the triplets, then didn't even score a touchdown against the Vikings in the divisional round.

The Dodgers started fast, then Ethier and Manny got hurt, Ned Colletti publicly insulted Matt Kemp's smarts and hustle, Russell Martin continued to ground out a lot, Colletti pretended they were contenders long enough to give up more good prospects in some awful deals at the deadline, and I ended up watching a strange mix of has-beens and no-talent/all-hustle guys like Jamey Carroll and Scott Podsednik eat up at-bats en route to an 80-82 record.

It's Giants (as my coworker put it today, a roster of journeymen plus Buster Posey) and Phillies (smarmy punks) in a no-win NLCS.

The 2010 Cowboys remain the dumbest, most undisciplined team in the NFL and have their 1-4 record to show for it, despite dominating their opponents in yardage and time of possession every week. It's that idea of "hidden yardage" old Bill P. always mentioned and, no matter what Jerry Jones says, they Cowboys are what their record says they are (another favorite Parcells-ism). They have the talent to turn it around, but they're inconsistent, partly due to the character of the players on the roster, but largely due to a weak-minded head coach and an offensive coordinator who can't make adjustments, hates the run, and doesn't appear to be employing any real offensive system. Much like I wrote in my preview of the 2009 season, I'm always pumped to see the Cowboys play, but I couldn't get pumped for their prospects this season. I never know what I'm going to get from this team, and it hurts less to take a more measured perspective.

To top it all off, my primary fantasy football team (renamed this year to The Other Roy Williams Domination Maneuver) is barely 3-3 after I botched probably the first three rounds of the draft.

On a positive note, Brett Favre continues to be revealed as the despicable person I always told everyone he was. This has led to another positive: awareness of the dangers of celldonging.

He's back!

Eric Gagne signed a minor-league deal with an invitation to major-league spring training today. Again, I hope this works out, but I have absolutely no expectation that it will--after all, he pretty much got lit-up in the Canadian league last year.

If it doesn't work out, maybe he can become pitching coach, or at least bullpen coach. Rick Honeycutt never really seems to add anything or actually help turn around pitchers when they're struggling in-game; he's certainly no Jim Colborn, plus many, if not most, Dodgers fans still think fondly of him. Remember how learning Gagne's changeup temporarily turned around Guillermo Mota's career as part of the stalwart Dodger bullpens of 2003-04? Can you imagine him lumbering out to the mound to knock some sense into Jonathan Broxton's fragile psyche? Or what about the massive sweat-off any time he visits Chad Billingsley? When I mentioned the idea, my friend took the brilliance one step further. Think "Welcome to the Jungle" accompanied by the Game Over Gagne faces flashing on the scoreboards every time he makes a mound visit. This sounds like a winning idea for all involved.

Good luck, Eric.

Welcome (Back) to the Jungle?

So I've been gone for a few months. As soon as the NFL season started, I went on hiatus to ramp up my studying for the LSAT, followed by a few months of worrying non-stop about whether to apply to law school with a sucky LSAT score.

Fall proceeded nonetheless. My Dodgers World Series dreams came and went, leaving me with a well-used rally towel by which to remember the Matt Holliday groin game and all of Vin Scully's subsequent groin-related euphemisms, not to mention a second towel from the Phillies series that I use to plug the gap in my window when I run through the car wash. My Cowboys Super Bowl dreams came and went, with my attempts to remain unhopeful dissolving into the by-now-trite (at least to me) roller coaster of emotions, but I'm happy Romo stopped playing Favre and that the team found a defensive identity to carry into next year. Speaking of Favre, I still can't believe he willingly deferred to Adrian Peterson for most of the season; yes, I was wrong about his stats, but he still single-handedly tanked the Vikings' season in the end, which I found very satisfying. Also satisfying was the seeming fruition of my hopes for the unequivocal end of the Patriots' decade of dominance. Overall, while the football season ended disappointingly, even in light of the fact that the BCS title game never happened, I feel much more comfortable with what I started to see take shape with the Cowboys than what the Dodgers left me with at the end of the baseball season.

Now that football's over, and we've come full circle to the cusp of spring training, I suppose it's time to start addressing that, but that's not what brought me out of hibernation today. Instead, I'll admit that I'm prematurely, irrationally giddy about the latest rumor of Eric Gagne's return to the Dodgers. Early yesterday, my colleague passed on the news that the Dodgers and Rockie were working him out; today, Jon Heyman reported that the Dodgers are the leading candidate to sign him. No, it didn't end well the first time around: he injured his knee, pitched through the injury, injured himself further, was never the same, and still asked for a ton of money that the Dodgers weren't willing to give him. He went to Texas, and I started listening to the end of Rangers games hoping to catch some game-ending strikeouts. Then, the Rangers traded him to Boston, and I (and Red Sox fans) wanted to die, followed by Milwaukee and incrimination with buddy, former batterymate, and my former favorite Dodger Paul LoDuca in the whole steroids mess.

Throughout it all, I always hoped he'd come back to L.A. because, before it ended badly, Eric Gagne provided me with three-plus of the best years of my life as a sports fan, and I don't care that he likely fueled those years with steroids. You had to have been a Dodgers fan, and you had to have been there, but there's a reason why playing "Welcome to the Jungle" on Guitar Hero III, hearing "Welcome to the Jungle" on the radio, or even thinking about "Welcome to the Jungle" still makes me misty-eyed. Brazoban was a fat, one-dimensional fly ball machine. Saito was great, but he was old enough that we knew it wouldn't last long, and he always looked like he'd just walked into surprise lottery party every time he earned a save. Broxton throws as fast as Gagne threw in his prime, but he's inconsistent, relies too much on his heat, and let Matt Stairs, of all people, get inside his head. I have no illusions that re-tread Gagne would come anywhere close to matching his salad days, but I hold a deep-seated need to see him rumble out of the bullpen to "Welcome to the Jungle" one more time, even if he only ever strikes out one more batter in his life. It just ended too soon and too abruptly last time; as a woman, sometimes I guess I just need closure.