RIP, Michael

I never cared about all the other stuff, I just thought Smooth Criminal was an awesome song.

Archive Hunting

Was combing through the archives today looking for something about Randy Foye when I saw this headline, from July 13, 2007, the day Al-Farouq Aminu, Tony Woods and Ty Walker committed to play basketball at Wake Forest for the late Skip Prosser. Looks like my pessimism was too optimistic.

This Will Make The Inevitable 2009 Second Round Upset Loss All The More Painful

The Bullets Trade: I Feel Like I'm Taking Crazy Pills!

Like Mugatu in Zoolander, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills any time I hear somebody talk about the Bullets-Timberwolves trade. People love it and, for the life of me, I can't understand why.

I've heard the reasons for support. We'll take them point-by-point:
1) It clears away three bad contracts -- There are bad contracts (Etan Thomas, 6 yrs/$36 million) and then there are bad contracts (Gilbert Arenas 6 yrs/$111 million). Getting rid of Thomas and Songailia's admittedly bad deals is like using a dixie cup to stop the flooding in a rowboat.
2) Randy Foye and Mike Miller give the team the best chance to win now -- I loved Randy Foye when he was at Villanova. And Mike Miller was pretty good when he was in his prime back in the 1980s. But Foye is a guard coming to a team with too many and Mike Miller is a scorer coming to a team that has Gilbert Arenas. Neither play much of any defense and isn't that this team's biggest problem?
3) The fifth-pick wasn't important because this draft sucks and the team needs to win now -- OK, first of all, it's never a good sign when everyone thinks that the window to win is closing and your star player (who can't stay healthy) still has five years and $100 million left on his contract.
Second of all, see point No. 2
Finally, I hate this draft more than you do (because I think Blake Griffin is too small to dominate in the NBA). If the Bullets had picked James Harden I might have watched them less than I did last year (which would have been hard to do). Tyrone Hill sounds too much like Thomas Hill and we can't have crying on the bench. And Stephen Curry? I'm literally speechless that people are talking about him going in the top-five.
This is the first time in a long time I don't have a "non-top five player to watch". This is the only thing I'm ever good at predicting (former winners: Ben Gordon, Danny Granger, Josh Howard, Caron Butler, Paul Pierce and Marcus Williams -- OK, five out of six ain't bad), but I love nobody in this class. (Update: Wait, I forget about Ty Laweson. I love me some Ty Lawson. He's my horse in this race.)
That being said, unlike the NFL, there is virtually no risk in using NBA draft picks. If Haseem Thabeet slips to you and he's awful, that's just three years, $11 million out of your pocket. Why give up the possibility of getting someone good just because the probability is that they won't be? The risk doesn't outweigh the possible reward.

* Check out my debut on Yahoo!'s Soccer Experts Blog. First, the Chinese hated me. Now, American soccer fans. (I swear it's never my intention to rile people up when I write these things ... well, except for Duke fans.)

Happy Father's Day

My dad doesn't like sports all that much, but because I do, he sat through countless Redskins, Capitals, Bullets and Terps games, a handful of golf tournaments and all of my swim meets, basketball games and soccer games (and, trust me, those must have been painful). Thanks, dad.
Read Joe Posnanski's excellent Father's Day column from today's Kansas City Star.

Idiots Play Dress Up At The Nats Game

Tonight at the Nats-Blue Jays game, two doofuses dressed up like an umpire and mocked the home plate ump the entire night, mimicking calls, yelling "strike" and, presumptively, singing the national anthem. When a ball was hit out of play, they'd fake throw a ball back to the pitcher. If it wasn't so annoying it might have been mildly clever. But amusement soon turned to anger and by the 9th inning when the guys were yelling "steeeerike" so loudly that MASN cameras picked it up, Rob Dibble said he wanted to smack them. And this is why I've learned to stop worrying and love Dibs.

This Is Worse Than Buckner

I can't say that I've ever seen a worse way to lose a baseball game than the Mets did last night. With 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth, Alex Rodriguez popped up to Luis Castillo. It should have been a rountine fly ball to cap an 8-7 victory for the Mets. Or not.
Take it away, Keyboard Cat:

The Bill Buckner play occurred with a lot more on the line, of course, but even if Buckner had made scooped up Mookie Wilson's ground ball, the game still would have gone to extras. On this one, Castillo's drop is the difference between a win and a loss.
The one replay I wanted to see of this was whether K-Rod did his stupid little victory celebration before Castillo dropped it. I'm also impressed that Teixiera was so far around the base path. I was trying to figure out how many other major leaguers would have been in a position to score. Manny probably wouldn't have even been on second yet.
This video, from Awful Announcing, plays the call from both the Yankees and Mets TV and radio crews. It's remarkable how bad both radio calls are:

And then there's this back-page headline of today's New York Post, which I accurately called late last night:

Sutcliffe's Been Drinking Again ...

Rick Sutcliffe was a great baseball player during his days with the Cubs and Orioles. It wasn't until he got into the broadcast booth that he became a legend.
Three years ago, a very-inebriated Sutcliffe joined San Diego Padres announcer Matt Vasgersian in the booth and proceeded to slur his way through a monologue that touched on Bill Murray, the best cities in which to play golf, solving that thing in Africa and, of course, George Clooney. (You can watch the video here. I penned an ode to Sutcliffe a year later.)
The Clooney line is the obvious highlight, as Sutcliffe, without any provocation whatsoever (they were talking about his daughter going to Harvard) randomly blurted out "George Clooney!", to which a bewildered Matt Vasgerian responded, "George CLOOney?" In the frequent cases in which I'm confused/have no answer, I often mimic Vasgerian's response, no matter the situation. (Example: Lady friend: Chris, where do you see this going? Me: George Clooney??)
As you can tell, Sutcliffe is the tops in my book. And now, he's moving up another notch, for we have a sequel to The Clooney Incident.
At the end of a ridiculous stand-up on Yawkey Way filmed hours before the Yanks-Sox first pitch tonight at Fenway, Dave O'Brien wrapped things up by saying that he and Sutcliffe needed to head up to the booth. Then a guy on stilts walked by. That's when the magic happened.

Initially, the hilarity was focused on Sutcliffe trying to high five the guy on stilts, but having to wait a few seconds while the guy shook hands with O'Brien. But then, as he's walking away after saying, "hey, how you doin man? Good to see ya! Alright," Sutcliffe turns back around and yells "Dustin Pedroia!" in the most "George Clooney"-esque manner imaginable.
At first I figured that the guy on stilts had a Pedroia jersey on. Nope. A Pedroia t-shirt? Negative. There's nothing in the shot that indicates anything in the area was related to Dustin Pedroia.
After re-watching this at least two dozen times, I saw that the writing on the back of stilt-guy's t-shirt said "Big League Brian". Big League Brian is apparently a staple around Fenway.
So why did Sutcliffe yell "Dustin Pedroia"? Does he have a very specific form of Tourette's that causes him to yell out random people's names? Did he have one too many Budweisers during the pre-game? Did he think that the guy on stilts was actually Pedroia?
I suppose Pedey and Big League Brian sort of look alike, in that they're both white and wear Red Sox hats, although that's the sort of assumption that got Sutcliffe's old partner-in-crime, Vasgersian, in some trouble from the PC-police earlier this year. If that's what he actually thought, then Sutcliffe is even more awesome than I thought.
If not, I'll just assume that Sutcliffe was in sudden need of someone to go over there and solve that thing and the defending MVP is the first name that popped into his head.

Redskins WR Keith Eloi Has Crazy Hops

These viral videos of guys jumping out of pools or leaping over bench press set-ups in the weight room are getting kind of old. Same goes for Kevin Love hitting half-court shots like they were lay-ups or LeBron shooting from the behind the basket with ease. People have always been able to do this sort of stuff, it's only now that said stuff is instantly transmitted to the world over YouTube. (Sam Cassell, in particular, used to have a crazy behind the basket shot that me and my buddy Nick would try to duplicate at the hoop on my parent's driveway.)
That being said, this video is pretty good. Here's Keith Eloi, a Redskins rookie receiver (of course) who went undrafted and stands little chance of making the team.

If they ever make a new Dukes of Hazzard, Bo and Luke should drive a pickup truck and they should hop into it like Eloi. Jump out the pool on that, indeed.

Gratzi, Mr. Irrelevant

All Quiet on the Player Hating Front (For the Next Week)

I've picked up some posting at Yahoo! this summer, so for the next week (until school lets out) I'm going to be pretty swamped. Since the Player Hater's Ball (or Chazsports, or ChrisChase.com or whatever the hell its called now) will be the loser in this deal for the next seven days, you can get your fix of me at Yahoo! or by following me on Twitter, where I'm making pithy comments like:

@chaztopher: Selig just announced the Nats pick, Drew Storen, as from Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA. Isn't Stanford in Palo Alto? Nah, Bud's never wrong.

Speaking of Twitter, check out Jamie's DC Twitter rankings. If I had any inclination to feel bad about being so low, I can just look at Dan Hellie's name and realize that it's probably much more depressing for him.
I'll still have some stuff going up here, I'm sure, but I just wanted to give you the heads up in case posting is more sporadic than usual (when it's still pretty sporadic).
I leave you with this:

Deep Thoughts, With Chris Singleton

A verbatim exchange between Brian Kenny and ESPN baseball "analyst" Chris Singleton during today's 6 p.m. SportsCenter:

Brian Kenny: The White Sox trail the Tigers by 5-1/2 games. Ozzie Guillen said this was a very important series, Chris. How important is this series?
Chris Singleton: Yeah, it is an important series because if you get swept you're 8-1/2 games behind. Any time you're playing the division leader, that's your opportunity to make up some games. And when you look at the course of a long season it can come down to that one game at the end of the year. Last year the White Sox and the Twins had to play that extra game to see who was going to the playoffs. So when you look at these games and say, "aww, it's June, but it's early, but we also gotta try to win these games because when we're directly playin' the leader we gotta gain some ground, we gotta get close," and, the White Sox they really need to do that."

Jeff Teague Isn't Walking Through That Door

The public comments got more and more ominous this week from Jeff Teague in regards to his chances of returning for his junior season at Wake Forest. From a USA Today article last week about players testing the NBA draft waters:

At this point, Teague said, he will hire an agent if he gets feedback indicating he will be a first-round pick.

First he wanted to be in the lottery, then he wanted to be in the top-20, now he just wants to go in the first round. As I wrote on the official Atlanta Hawks blog this week, basketball-wise, Teague needs to stay in school. But from the sounds of his comments, that's looking more and more remote.
Then came news that Teague sprained his MCL yesterday. I'd by lying if I said that the news of that minor injury didn't make me a little bit hopeful that it would force him to return to school. But then Teague's father dropped the bombshell to Jeff Goodman at FOXSports.com:

However, Teague's father echoed the recent comments of his son when he told FOXSports.com that he is likely to remain in the draft.

"I don't think this injury will alter that," Shawn Teague said. "That's the way we feel. In terms of hiring an agent, we're going to exhaust every day we can that it's an option."

Oh fffffffff -- shit. He's gone.

* Here's the link to a Teague draft preview I wrote for Hawks BasketBlog this week.

The Death of the Player Hater's Ball?

As some of you noticed today, PlayerHatersBall.com now leads to a dead link. For the moment, it will stay that way. The only way to reach the site now is to go to its original address: chazsports.blogspot.com.
Here's the brief version of what happened: I registered playerhatersball.com on April 22, 2008. Like an idiot, I only signed up for a one-year registration. I did, however, have an automatic renewal that was supposed to take effect on April 22, 2009. In early April of this year, I began receiving emails from the email address: google-apps-do-not-reply@google.com. These were automatically sent to my Spam folder on Gmail (nice synergy there, guys). On April 15, 2009 I received an email that said my automatic renewal had been denied. I assume this was because my credit card number has changed in the past 12 months. I didn't see this email until today. (I hadn't even thought about the domain name renewal. I figured it would do it automatically, I had signed up for a two year deal or that I'd receive an email if there was a problem.
Today, my site went dark. I just got off the phone with GoDaddy, the site Google used to register playerhatersball.com, and the customer service rep (who was very helpful, and I'm not saying that sarcastically) informed me that a company called "National Registry Corporation" had claimed the name this afternoon. This despite the fact that the emails from Google that were in my spam folder said I had 60 days from April 22 to re-register the name.
So, for the time being, the site is back up at chazsports.blogspot.com. I'm trying to get ChrisChase.com to direct traffic toward that address. As for the people who have been using playerhatersball.com to get to the site, I don't know how I'll let them know.
This is a pretty disappointing development. Hopefully I'll get it resolved soon.

Update: Falkow notes that this is all very Jim Anchower.

The Cutting of Jon Jansen

Why is the news never more upsetting when your team cuts a player that you've respected, rooted for and, in sports terms, loved for over a decade? The release of Jon Jansen should have been a sad sports moment for D.C., instead it barely made a ripple.
Is that the cynicism of becoming a Redskins fan? The realities of fielding a team in the flawed salary cap era?
Who knows. All that matters is that I wasn't as disappointed to lose a true Redskin as I should have been. It's partially because it was the right move and partially because, with this team, you've come to expect these sorts of things.
Along with Chris Samuels (who came to Washington one year later), Jansen was a mainstay on those bumbling Turner/Schottenheimer/Spurrier teams. So when Joe Gibbs came back (and brought Joe Bugel too), we all thought Jansen would be the anchor of the new revolution of Hogs -- The Dirtbags, as they were called. But on the first play of the first pre-season game under Gibbs, Jansen went down with a leg injury and was out for the season.
More injuries followed, Jansen aged and by the time of his return last season, it was clear that he was only marginal in rush blocking and completely worthless in pass blocking. Cutting him, while sad, was the right move.
But lest we start patting Dinny (Vinny Cerrato and Dan Snyder -- I'm going to start using that again) on the back for making a difficult, if reasonable, move for cap space and roster purposes, there is one major problem with the whole thing: THERE'S NOBODY TO REPLACE JANSEN! In the last two drafts, the Redskins had to know that the o-line of Samuels, Jansen, Thomas and Rabach weren't going to be around much longer. Guys on the trenches get old fast. Jonathan Ogden was ancient when he retired at 33. They needed to draft depth guys that wouldn't necessarily start immediately, but could step in to roles when players got hurt (like Jansen did) or players were cut (like Jansen did). But they didn't.
Despite the fact that guys getting old and old guys getting cut are like the death and taxes of the NFL, the team ignored its biggest need in the last draft and chose zero offensive lineman. None. The year before, Dinny saw fit to grab one tackle, or two less picks than they used on wide receivers.
Even though it was clear to anyone watching, Dinny refused to get help for a position that was rapidly diminishing. Now Jansen is gone and, while it makes sense, there's nobody to step into his role.
That's just business as usual at Redskins Park.

Yahoo!'s Tennis Experts Blog: Know It, Learn It, Bookmark It

A programming note: During the remaining Grand Slam tournaments this summer, I'll be occasionally posting on Yahoo!'s Tennis Experts Blog. I know you've already been reading, but now you have an additional reason to. My first two entries are here:

Will Andy Roddick ever win another major?
Serena Williams calls opponent a "cheater" after controversial call

I started writing that Roddick post when he was down two sets to none. It saved me some time, but it blinded me to the fact that there was a much better topic: French Open officials allowing play to go on as dusk settled on Paris. Although it's probably best that I didn't, lest I post sentences likes this: Some could say the French were helping their own (Roddick lost to a Frenchman), but seeing as how much citizens of that country probably would have advised Gael Monfils to immediately surrendur, I'm not sure how accurate that sentiment is.