l'antagonista

How much more of a discount could you possibly want?

2011-12-08T11:23:00.001-08:00

Albert Pujols was paid a total of $104 million for the first 10 years (and almost certainly the best 10 years) of his Hall of Fame career. It is safe to say the Cardinals got the single-greatest bargain in the history of the sport, relative to the market.

Ryan Howard will be paid $180 million for the first 10 years of his career. Mark Teixeira will be paid $144 million. If Prince Fielder is signed to a contract that pays him $20 million or above for the next five seasons, he will make at least $135 million for his first 10 years. And these are just Pujols' three main contemporaries at 1B. Without checking, I'm confident that at least 20 players have made, or will make, more than Pujols in the first 10 years of their careers, and none of them will offer the same level of production.

Pujols isn't necessarily deserving of sympathy: He made the decision to sign a below-market extension with the Cards, and the team was well within its rights to not renegotiate that contract. But to dismiss the fact that while Pujols was busy being the best player in baseball, the Cards went out and signed a great, but inferior player in Matt Holliday to a higher salary than Pujols' is to purposely prevent yourself from getting the point. The Cardinals knew they were getting a massive bargain in Pujols, and took advantage of it to sign a lesser player for more money, without offering their best player at least a matching salary.

And this is where I get to my (hopefully) succinct point: The Cardinals were playing with at least $35 million in house money, when you compare what they would have had to spend to get 85 percent of his production from another player. You could argue that the figure is probably closer to $100 million, when taking into account how much better Pujols has been than his contemporaries, one of which is going to be paid $80 million more for his first 10 years. The Angels have no credit with which to work, so the $250 million they'll pay for Pujols is based entirely on what they hope he produces for the next 10 years. The Cards, on the other hand, could have offset the inevitable years of overpay in his late 30s and early 40s with the money they already banked from his services while he was drastically underpaid.

The Cardinals had every economic incentive imaginable to ensure they offered Pujols more than any other team. You can argue they made the correct decision to not take on the risk of that 10-year deal, but you cannot argue that Pujols was disloyal for taking the highest bid after 10 years of being underpaid by a very large amount. Loyalty in an employer-employee relationship is always based on money, which is how we measure the esteem with which the subordinate is held. In this case, the employee got a pretty good idea of how his employer felt about not only his future worth, but the worth of his past efforts, and made the entirely rational decision to head elsewhere, where he was wanted more.

Contemplating Paterno, McQueary, and outrage

2011-11-09T21:29:00.000-08:00

I feel sorry for Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary. I really do. Both men can be counted amongst the victims of Jerry Sandusky's monstrous crimes, even if they are not the victims we should be most concerned with, or feel the most sympathy for. Both those men were violated in a basic and awful way by Sandusky, and for that they do deserve sympathy.

Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary are awful human beings, and I wish them nothing but misery for the rest of their worthless lives. Those two men are wholly complicit in the continued brutalization of young men by a monster who should be put down with no more dignity than a rabid pitbull.

As we go through life, we can only hope to not be exposed to the depths of the human soul that Paterno and McQueary had so forcefully brought to their immediate attention. I cannot fathom what I would feel if a friend of mine, someone I loved, was revealed to be a monster. I am sure it would cause me to never love, or trust, again, and that in and of itself would render me something less than a whole person. Paterno and McQueary could never be whole again, from the second they discovered what a man they knew, admired, maybe even loved, was doing to at least one young man that day in the bowels of an institution they undoubtedly love as if it were itself human.

But let us not speak of what we would do. I cannot attest to my fitness for navigating this situation, nor can anyone else, except those who have been dealt the blow of actually having faced it. To even consider the hypothetical is to equivocate, to pretend that a choice really exists when it doesn't.

Instead we must speak of what must be done by any human being in that situation: Stop it from ever happening again, no matter the cost. Paterno and McQueary failed a test they didn't deserve to be faced with, and for that failure there is no punishment severe enough on this realm to, upon its execution, grant them absolution. This is not arguable, unless you do not value anything in this world.

You might say, but these men have families, and children of their own, and it is for those reasons they have worth. But those men already betrayed their families and children, and their worthiness as fathers, or spouses, or loved ones is invalidated by their awful crime against the very essence of what makes us human. There is no amount of good they could have done in their lives to outweigh their complicity in child rape. My hope is for both that they die with no other thought than what misery they wrought on Sandusky's victims.

"I am disappointed in the Board's decision," said Paterno in a statement released just moments ago. What incredible proof that this man is unworthy of anything but our most vicious contempt. He just walked out of his house with a smile and his arm around his wife, who herself has abdicated any notion of humanity, as deluded students screamed they loved him, and said he loved them too, before asking as a coda to "pray for the victims." There are no words.

As for those students, the ones on his front lawn, the ones holding gobsmacking silent vigils for the decrepit coward in front of his statue, the ones rioting out on Beaver Street: Our society will not be whole until you leave it, one way or the other. Paterno and McQueary indeed suborned child rape, a crime that defies our ability to express its horrors in words, but did so in a crisis of the soul, and failed their test as humans because they didn't have the moral fortitude to do the only thing a real human being can do. But you, "students," you are animals who mitigate the horrors of child rape with the benefit of reflection, and do a disservice to our species. The stain you have put on us all is one that will not fade for some time, but we can only hope you all begin the healing process for the rest of us by removing yourself from our society, sooner rather than later.

So a cross walks into a federal preserve ...

2009-10-07T21:52:00.000-07:00

While living in Pocatello, Idaho, I drove by the county's courthouse on an almost-daily basis. Erected out on the otherwise nondescript lawn was a rather crude monument depicting the Ten Commandments, which is to many courthouses in America what a red light is to a den of iniquity. As a unabashed and often vocal atheist, the memorial was a daily annoyance, though not for the reason many would think. I don't have a problem with signs of faith anymore than I do proclamations of the absence thereof. I am not personally offended or bothered by the concept of spirituality, I just think spirituality itself is silly and dangerous to our world writ large.

The underlying cause of my being annoyed, and the reason I wanted that monument removed, was because I shuddered to think of how totally stupid the lawn in front of the courthouse would look if it featured monuments of faith for the wide variety of religions practiced in the city. I'd just rather we just tell everyone — Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus — that such displays are best left to the front window of one's house. Or, say, churches.

The response to this argument — and it's almost always the Christians who posit such — is that Christian symbols aren't inherently exclusive. Like the champions of the repulsive Confederate Flag that flew over the South Carolina state house, they'll say it's history that's being protected here, not the particular set of beliefs represented by the symbols. That's the tack pursued by Justice Antonin Scalia in defense of the "White Cross World War I Memorial," a five-foot tall white cross erected in 1934 which sits in the federally owned Mojave National Preserve.

"It's erected as a war memorial! I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of … of … of the resting place of the dead."

The article I've linked to covers its bases in terms of the back-and-forth, and I'm certainly not interested in exploring the various legalistic questions at play in this case. What interests me are two things: 1) The fact that Scalia, a brazenly intelligent man who rarely walks into an intellectual gunfight with a knife, actually believes that non-Christians would ever be buried under a cross (this isn't even the case with large plots of anonymous military burial grounds, where any recognized Jew would have a Star of David substituted for a cross); and, 2) That Scalia actually believes that the universal sign of Christianity ever ceases to be so, even if it's being employed in a non-religious context (in this case, a war memorial).

Of course he doesn't actually believe the second premise implicit in his objection; no human being on earth would ever recognize a white cross as anything but a symbol of Christianity, just like no American would recognize the Confederate Flag as anything but a symbol of slave-owning secessionists who once took arms against fellow citizens and America itself. What he's really arguing here is intent, as clearly those vets who put the cross up in the first place did so with no intention of creating an Establishment Clause skirmish, mainly because America was a much more hegemonic place then than it is today.

It's a sticky situation, as almost every fight surrounding the Establishment Clause is. Tearing down the memorial seems a rather crude exercise, since it was and is a war memorial, and memorials are what little solace we have to offer to our military dead and their families. But the alternative is to open up the memorial space to more demonstrations of faith, as was proposed by a Buddhist on this very site. No one will argue that allowing a Buddhist exhibition would be more consistent with the principles of our pluralistic, multi-faith society, but it would also be a logistical and aesthetic nightmare. One can see a situation in which, come the passing of a decade, the site would look more like a "Faiths of the World" exhibition at your local high school than anything resembling a war memorial.

So we have to ask ourselves, what's worse? Nothing, or everything? Because our constitution does not properly allow for the possibility that a majority's religious beliefs somehow affords those followers more rights for public display than the followers of less popular faiths. To argue otherwise would simply be arguing in favor of de facto establishment, which is a short and token step away from just going ahead and ratifying Christianity as our nation's official religion.

Many Christians, particularly those of a rightward bent, find arguments like mine to be repugnant. They express mock or real outrage at the idea of someone being "offended" by Christian displays on public land (and I'll concede that the verb "offense" and its various conjugations have been abused to a tragic degree). They see any challenge to public displays of Christian symbols as being an "attack" on Christianity, just like they see the use of the term "Happy Holidays" as part of a "war" on Christmas. Yet, they don't see their support of passive exclusion as being an attack on Judaism, just the nature of the world when your tribe is the smaller one, and doesn't boast the commonly recognized name of its deity in a passage of the Declaration of Independence (contrary to a rather disturbing commonly held belief, "God" is not mentioned once in The Constitution, a document that actually holds up the concept of "liberty" as that which bestows any and all blessings).

But professed outrage is a poor substitute for logic, and there is ultimately no logical defense available to those who believe Christian symbols can expect special protection in the public sphere. And, since I know men like Scalia would be even more scandalized by opening up the floodgates and turning the front lawns of every small-town courthouse into a smorgasbord of religious symbology, I think we can all agree that it's just better to have nothing at all.

Mr. Scalia, tear down that cross.

Joyce Carol Oates is a monster

2009-09-01T10:50:00.001-07:00

From her recent contribution to the torrent of Ted Kennedy remembrances:

Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?

Is this what it's become? The guilt for Oates and her like over loving Teddy has seemed to overwhelm a rather intelligent woman's last grasp on logic. We're now justifying the kind of callousness and negligence that led to a young woman's unnecessary death — and it's worth noting that she was a wonderful, liberal woman who had dedicated much of her short life to the cause of civil rights — by measuring what that person does with the rest of his undeservedly free life?

And then, this horrifying sentence from someone with much less of a Q rating (and hopefully influence), worse than anything I've heard usual whipping boys O'Reilly, Beck or Limbaugh say recently (though I'm sure they're scrambling now that the stakes have been raised):

Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

I don't suppose it's worth mentioning that Kennedy's worth as a politician is in the eyes of the beholder; one shouldn't need to point out to Oates and the HuffPoTroll (HPT from here on out) that there's a significant portion of the American population that wished he was locked up precisely to prevent his "second act." No, even if it were accepted by every person in America that Kennedy's contributions as a politician were positive, it would not aid their arguments in the slightest.

There is something so completely revolting about how easily Oates, HPT and many Kennedy defenders, have sloughed off the death of Mary Jo Kopechne as nothing more than a "nadir" of an otherwise great man's life. Perhaps Oates requires reminding that actual human lives aren't slaves to a narrative arc; Kennedy was no vessel for a fiction writer. He was a real man, who could have had the political career he did without Kopechne's death. And Kopechne was a real woman — do we really need to trot out the "somebody's daughter" bullshit to make this point? — who herself aimed to make a real difference in this country. Who knows? Maybe she could have been an even more influential figure in the civil rights movement than Teddy himself?

Maybe I'm expecting too much from the writers who clearly were trying to set themselves apart from the chatter. Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm allowing my harsh summary judgement of Kennedy's political career — he is one of the leading proponents of the government as omnipresent force in my daily life — to cloud my dim view of Oates and HPT's rather cruel-sounding calculus.

But to accept what they've said is to accept that the ends always justify the means. And many of our worst sins as a country and a human race have been perpetrated using that very justification, including many of the sins we continue to commit today. And it also makes me wonder if Oates, and HPT, believe we should start searching our penitentiaries for more men like Kennedy, who simply needed their own "nadir" before doing great things. Because, surely, these lions of equality and liberalism don't believe such redemption is only available to the rich and privileged.

Boy, I don't know if I can really do this

2009-08-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

So, I'm about 99 percent sure that, beginning this September, I will begin a Master's program at the University of Phoenix for secondary education. But, before I finalize anything, I'm doing some research on my possible future career, and stumble across this nugget of pure government beauty in the list of requirements for a full secondary education accreditation:

• A passing score on the performance portion of the Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessment. Currently, the assessment has not been developed.

You just can't make that shit up.

Adventures in online content

2009-08-24T14:08:00.000-07:00

Far be it from me to accuse someone else of prejudice, but the absence of "Puerto Rican" on the following list of possible answers shrieks of blatant bias.

For shame, ESPN.

Why the draft is only slightly worse than the Bataan Death March

2009-08-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

The draft isn't broken. Proof? Here's how the the key part of the top three teams' draft board looked when the festivities kicked off a couple of months ago:

WASHINGTON NATIONALS:
1) Stephen Strasburg

SEATTLE MARINERS:
1) Stephen Strasburg
2) Dustin Ackley

SAN DIEGO PADRES
1) Stephen Strasburg
2) Dustin Ackley
3) Donovan Tate

While you may quibble with whether Tate should have been the target at No. 3 for the Pads, you cannot argue that he was picked there because they thought he was the third-best player on the board, as evidenced by the fact that they set a bonus record for a prep draftee.

That trend continued down the board. While the Pirates took some heat for taking a "signability" guy in Tony Sanchez at No. 4, they did so in part because they were planning to make a splash later on in the draft and international market, both of which they did. Otherwise, what we saw this year was the best talent flowing to teams in inverse order to their finish in the '08 season.

But that's not what the draft is about, despite what some credulous and cretinous writers and fans will bleat. See, the worst teams not only want the best talent, they also want it for free. They're not happy paying Strasburg 1/5th of what he'd get on the open market (conservatively); they don't think he should cost anything at all. Because, clearly, the Nationals deserve a subsidy — paid for entirely in lost opportunity cost by the unlucky, talented amateur — for running a franchise into the ground, despite already receiving a healthy subsidy from the taxpayers of the greater DC area, not to mention the MLB's general fund.

The Nationals have spent or committed $138.85 million in the last five years in completely voluntary contracts (no service time or arbitration constraints), covering 26 total player seasons, for players on the 40-man roster. That works out to $5.34 million per player season. While not all of those seasons have been cashed in, most of them have been, and you can see the results. If the Nationals are cash-poor, it's only because they decided to re-up Dmitri Young for another 2 years at $5 million per when he would have been lucky to get a minor-league deal elsewhere (and Jim Bowden agreed to keep him on the 25-man roster, regardless of performance, to boot!). Outside of that, virtually every player on the 40-man is making the major-league minimum, give or take a few thousand.

The Nationals had the first pick in the draft because they've been a horrendously run organization, mostly in the sense that they spend what money they have terribly. And who, besides the poor bastards still paying for tickets, gets to foot the bill for the team's ineptitude? Stephen Strasburg, who by deign of the draft and the fact he wasn't born in a foreign country, will receive millions less than he would have in an open market for the first four years of his career (plus two more arb years, which will assuredly pay him closer to what he could earn in a free agent deal, but still not as much).

Yes, the young man will still make $15 million over the first four years of his career, which is not a slave wage, nor should it be compared to one. But no one questions what Strasburg would fetch on the open market — a much less proven/polished pitcher in Aroldis Chapman, a better comp for Stras than Daisuke Matsuzaka, is predicted by some to fetch upwards of $30 million — and that's lost money, period. An athlete's career is a fleeting asset in the best of situations, and the attrition rate is higher for pitchers yet. Everyone talks about what Stras will make down the road, and many of the idiots — Jayson Stark, Ryan Zimmerman, Thomas Boswell — are content to say he should wait for his payday happily. But that payday may never come. It's easy to say, when you've got tenure and are getting paid as much as the market will allow, that the kids should wait for the money.

I've read in some comment boards that the reason MLB must restrict draft bonuses is because the attrition rate for prospects is so great, the teams couldn't possibly afford to pay free-market values. But that argument sounds hollow when you consider that Strasburg, the most expensive drafted player in the history of the sport, will make just a little more than half of what the Nationals paid out to Dmitri Young and Austin Kearns for a combined six years. Both of those players turned in below-replacement performances during their time with the Nats; Strasburg is more valuable to the franchise never throwing a pitch, because at least he won't cost the major league team wins.

But I needn't cherry-pick horrible contracts to make an essential point: The draft is wrong, but not because the draftees are modern-day Tom Joads (as one commenter on ShysterBall mockingly said), or because competitive balance is bad. The draft is wrong because it's punishing the best amateur players by making them the only people who lose money for an organization's ineptitude. You can rationalize all you want, but we only have a draft because we're comfortable with the idea that young people deserve to make less only because they're young.

CERN for dummies

2008-09-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I haven't been posting lately. That's mainly because what little time in my life I still dedicate to writing has been absorbed by a project that isn't for public consumption. At least not now. Probably never. Anyway ...

My good friend Colin Laisure-Pool, a professional engineer and rank amateur in every other walk of life, put together an explanation of the whole CERN/Collider thing, which I found extremely edifying. With his permission, I'm reprinting it here, since some of you might be interested as well.

• • •

The what of CERN is pretty much public knowledge at this point: huge European collider ring that smashes particles at ridiculous energies. The how is irrelevant, really, to anyone who isn’t very much involved in particle physics (I could explain maybe about 60% of it, and about half of that would be accurate). But the point is that, a few years back, only physics majors and hardcore trivia nerds knew what CERN even stood for; now everyone who has an MSN account has heard of it, which I consider to be a good thing.

What isn’t such a good thing is the fact that the why has hardly been presented to the public at all, and, really, this is the most important question. Especially as far as the public is concerned, I feel that the physics community has dropped the ball in conveying the rationale and gravitas of this and other experiments of its kind. On the other hand, I can certainly see why and explanation of the why hasn’t been widely disseminated; it is a very difficult thing to explain.

And it’s not even like it is some sort of I-am-so-much-smarter-than-you type of situation; it took me 4 years of schooling and a considerable amount of my current free time to even know the half of it. Many people don’t have a solid physics background, so it is hard to find common ground or make pertinent references. As with anything, it is much easier to explain something to your colleagues than it is to someone with no background in a given field. It’s like trying to explain moment frames, or heat transfer vectors to your doctor. Your doctor is not a stupid person, by any means, but has no idea what you are talking about unless you break it down to the most fundamental of concepts. This means that you basically have to build the analogy or concept from the ground up, and that could take forever.

So, that being said, I’m going to take a swing at this:

The Good: CERN consists of a giant, underground ring on that uses large magnets (and electric fields, too, like a stellerator) to accelerate various subatomic particles (protons being pretty common, but anything with charge will do) in opposite directions within the ring and guides them on a collision path that occurs near the particle detector (the huge device ubiquitously accompanying any article on the matter). By smashing these particles together, we can then see what they are made of. It’s like a caveman trying to see what is inside of a baseball; he would have to throw it at a rock as hard as he could to break it open, and once he knows what is inside, he gains clearer insight into what makes the baseball travel the way that it does. But, what if he only breaks the outermost layer? He would have to throw it harder and harder in order to get down to the most essential elements of what is in that ball.

Like a matryoshka doll, you just have to look deeper and deeper until you find the final, smallest, and most essential component of that object. A hydrogen atom consists of a proton, neutron, and electron. Protons, neutrons and electrons are all made up of different combinations of up and down quarks (there are 6 known varieties of quark). Well, what are quarks made up of? We just have to keep throwing harder and harder to see. DØ (the Tevatron) at FermiLab throws pretty hard, like Roger Clemens. RHIC at Brookhaven (the gold nuclei) is like Nolan Ryan. But CERN would be like the EXPRODING GYROBARR of colliders, which has got people so excited and interested in the first place.

The search to find the essential particle, the last and smallest matryoshka doll, is important for many reasons. If we can find evidence that the Higgs boson exists (one of the sought after particles here), we can begin to unravel some of the mysteries behind why we are observing such very strange (only strange because we don’t understand it) phenomena at the relativistic quantum level. Basically, at very small scales and very high energies, quantum theory is wigging out on us. [Aside: Quantum theory is a theory in the same way that gravity is a theory. Quantum mechanics is a time-tested, verifiable science; the device that I’m using now is a testament to this.] We suspect that this is because we aren’t accounting for all of the elements involved; the stuff within the stuff that we are looking at could be the culprit behind this ‘weird’ behavior. Lots of super-nerds have lots of super-theories, some more popular than others, but to really advance in this field we need to have a look see. A hadron, by the way, is just jargon for any particle that is subject to the strong nuclear force, which is one of the four (or three, depending on who you ask) fundamental forces and the one that is the most important here.

The Bad: As you and everyone else are already aware, this kind of thing is e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e. Also, partially for reasons to be mentioned below, politics have become involved, which is never good for anything, ever. Particle colliders are huge, costly, and controversial. Google the SSC (Superconducting Super Collider) for an example of what I mean. Also, there is a possibility that this is not the final step! It is entirely possible that this will only get us through the next layer of the matryoshka, and even bigger colliders are needed, which could generate more questions that answers. When people commit this much money, time, and effort to something, they expect answers. They may not forthcoming, and it is likely that everyone not involved in the scientific community may not be prepared for this outcome. Is it possible that the universe could be infinitely parsed? I don’t think so, but it remains to be seen.

The Ugly: The most widely disseminated story surrounding this collider is that of these nut-jobs claiming that this collider will end the world in some sort of singularity collapse. Frankly, they are either ignorant, fame-seeking, or a combination of the two. While it is always prudent to be concerned about the dangers of such powerful devices, it is never appropriate to try to shut something like this down because of some cockamamie garbage about the end of the flipping world. The black holes that would be created by this experiment would be so miniscule and unstable as to be no more than an object for study. At these energies, the possibility of a black hole being created that is large and stable enough to consume the planet is about the same as an x-ray (or cosmic gamma ray, for that matter) causing a thermonuclear chain reaction after reaching your colon. Unfortunately, though, this is what is bound to happen when you have a largely misinformed public and a litigious culture that actually goes out of its way to find something to sue someone for. People hear “end of the world” and freak out. The world is not going to end because of this experiment; and even if it did, the planet would be crushed to the size of a ping-pong ball so quickly and violently that we wouldn’t even notice. Either way, there is no cause for alarm.

Long version: .........I’m getting cramps in my hands, so I’ll just suffice it to say that this issue is more nuanced and layered than can possibly be illuminated in one e-mail. The broadstroke is that this experiment will advance our understanding of the world and have long term impacts on future technologies unable to be predicted at this time. The laser was developed out of concepts that had been formulated hundreds of years prior to anyone ever envisioning such a device. And even when the laser was invented, nobody could have predicted the uses that we now have for it. Today’s seemingly trite nerdery is the groundwork for tomorrow’s next great technological achievement. The possibilities are endless; if we can only figure out how this damn universe works. We’ve come a long way from rubbing sticks together, but still have a long way to go.

Jean-Claude DeBeaune Brouilly

2008-08-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

Country: France
Region: Brouilly (Domaine Des Nazins)
Variety: Gamay Beaujolais
Year: 2006
Price: $15
Where I purchased it: Total Wine & More

This is the first bottle I cracked from my virgin run to the Glendale Total Wine & More. Before I get into the wine, let me make a hearty recommendation for Total Wine; I have trouble believing I'll be buying wine anywhere else for a while. Not only does it have an incredible selection, its prices are probably the best you'll find, anywhere.

As for the wine, it is exactly what I hoped it would be: Delicious.

Beaujolais is the wine I most often recommend to casual wine drinkers because it's the most accessible and versatile red on the market. It goes with just about anything in terms of food, and is light enough that most anyone can drink it without food at all. Plus, it's an excellent value for those looking for an inexpensive quaffing vino that doesn't smell and taste like turpentine.

Despite the fact that Beaujolais will only appear on this label in smaller print, it's still a Beaujolais in spirit. But where your standard Beaujolais or Beaujolais-Village will usually be a sweeter red with little in the way of body or finish, Brouilly comes in with a little more personality. This particular variety is among the lightest Brouillys I've had, but the essence is the same: Crisp, rich flavor that feels fresh on the palate but disappears almost immediately after the swallow. It's a totally enjoyable weekday wine for a small, light meal (I had it with a capicolla sandwich), and works best chilled (it came out of my cooler at 60 degrees, which is right in the middle of its ideal delta).

All in all, an excellent value and a definite recommendation.

My weekend in soccer, Aug 23-24

2008-08-25T08:46:00.000-07:00

I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my shit together, all told. I watched the first 20 minutes live, and then paused it after 20 minutes because it was too early (10 a.m.) to ruin one's day. It wasn't like I knew Arsenal was going to lose to Fulham — that kind of predictive ability only comes with a cosmic bath of gamma rays, or something — but I had a feeling that win, lose or draw, I was going to be pissed. And unlike that hirsute fraud Nostradamus, I actually nailed my prediction.

When I finally watched the game in Saturday's dusk, I had already resigned myself to disappointment, so its arrival was not met with shrieks of indignation. Instead, ever the adult, I sat and watched the remaining, sorry 70 minutes in the dark, drinking heavily but nonetheless silently. When the ridiculous showing was complete, I turned off the TV and went to bed.

It was 8 p.m.

This is fully my fourth year of being a serious soccer fan, though it's really only the third in which I find myself watching an extreme amount of it on TV. I still haven't shaken the feeling that I'm a mere poseur, a user of the sport as a method of allowing me to claim some higher level of worldliness over those who exclusively watch American sports. But the truth is probably more embarrassing: I now care much more about Arsenal and AS Roma than I do about the teams I've followed most of my life, and in turn soccer has become my passion. And, often, that passion turns me into a whimpering fool when one of my two sides dares not get three points.

But I made a solemn oath to myself, this season, to stop being such an idiot. I do not want my life to turn into a much less authentic version of Fever Pitch, especially since I'm watching the games a world away and often on my DVR. I cannot lose another week to despondency as I did earlier in 2008 when Arsenal was eliminated in the Champions League by what could only be considered the most sinister of officiating circumstances. I will not wish death upon Frank Lampard anymore, or at least not until he provokes me again by being such a whiny bitch. I will not be that guy.

With all that considered, I was proud of my behavior this weekend. I have not broken out into hives, I've not written 3,000-word missives on how Arsenal can save its season if it would just sign a complementary central mid (though I've probably composed 2/3rds of it in my head while showering), and I have yet to consider taking a golf club to my television. But I will say that my arm has mysterious blotches I can't stop scratching, that Aston Villa's Gareth Barry is still available and THE ANSWER TO ALL THAT AILS THE GUNNERS WHY WON'T YOU FUCKING SPEND THE EXTRA FIVE MILLION YOU CHEAP FRENCH COCKSUCKER ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME A STROKE and I've, as a preventative measure, started leaving my clubs in the car. You know, just in case.

Heaven help me if Arsenal and Roma lose in the same weekend. I'm not stupid enough to think it can't get worse than this.

This man is a god in Italy

2008-08-22T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why I want to move there so badly.

North America's ode to sodium

2008-08-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Montreal has the best food in the world. This is a point that cannot be disputed unless you are a vegetarian, in which case there's likely not much point in differentiating between various regional cuisines. I could be wrong about the vegetarian part, but I am most certainly not wrong about Montreal.

Most of you already know about the smoked meat. And the smoked meat is better than even the most hyperbolic statements you've heard about the smoked meat. I have abstained from red meat since the beginning of the year, but at no point subsequent to cementing my travel arrangements did I even consider not having as much smoked meat as I possibly could during my time in Montreal. And every bite I enjoyed in Montreal was accompanied with the knowledge that none of my friends were eating anything close to that delicious.

(Important smoked meat note: There are few things in this world more intimidating than a question about foreign food preparation asked by someone who is clearly disgusted by the fact that he's being forced to speak English. So save this in your memory for the first time you have the smoked meat: NEVER EVER EVER EVER ORDER IT "LEAN." To use a steak metaphor, it's like asking a $100 fillet mignon be prepared well done. I am positive that anyone in this world who does not like smoked meat has only ever had it "lean," and has that thus determined it's really no different than pastrami.)

But when I think of Montreal and food, it is not the smoked meat I think of. It is, instead, gravy.

The island of Montreal might as well be surrounded by a sea of gravy (it's actually called sauce, or BBQ sauce, there, but it's really just a slightly thinner and tastier version of regular brown gravy). Gravy is everywhere, and served with virtually every meal. Any dish at KFC (known as Poulet Frit Kentucky) is served with gravy, because every meal involving chicken in the city is served with gravy. And it's not the normal, shitty gravy we get at KFC in the states. It's fucking delicious gravy, the kind of gravy that makes you want to drop the pretense and just start drinking it directly out of the styrofoam cup.

It's not only chicken that gets the gravy. Fries get the gravy. You can get Poutine, which is gravy and slightly melted cheese curds on top of fries. Don't like cheese curds? No worries; you will never be looked at funny if you just order gravy with your fries, because that's how the Frenchies roll. Gravy. For. Everyone.

There is not much in the way of nice things one can say about Montreal. The people are shit, and fairly unattractive to boot. The women dress like they're stoned and the sun is a giant black light, and the city serves as the capital of those horrible stetch jeans that look good on approximately 2 percent of the female population. The locals not only speak French exclusively, but they speak a disgusting dialect of French. The drivers are insane, perhaps because one isn't allowed to take right turns on reds anywhere on the island (it's the only part of Quebec, if not the known universe, in which this is the case). The weather is awful, and the mosquitoes are the size of Arizona cockroaches.

But you will never, ever have to feel ashamed if you want to have gravy with your meal. Any meal. Montreal means never having to be sorry for taunting hypertension.

Unexpected layoff

2008-08-19T12:31:00.001-07:00

I have ended up spending three days longer in Montreal than originally expected, and internet access is spotty, as is the ability to have five minutes to myself. However, to make it up, I'll be posting a Montreal-centric missive upon my return.

Getting the bully's back

2008-08-12T14:50:00.001-07:00

Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan came out swinging today against MLB's arcane slotting system for the amateur draft (subscribers only, unfortunately). Key quote:

The draft is a broken system, one in which Major League Baseball openly and unashamedly restricts the career options of hundreds of young men in order to save itself millions of dollars each year, and everyone nods and smiles. We accept the concept of a draft in sports because it has largely been sold as a mechanism for increasing competitive balance—the worst teams get the highest picks. In fact, drafting high and drafting well are completely different things, as any fan of the Pirates—or, at the other end of the spectrum, the Braves—could tell you. That the draft may help competitive balance in a league is a tertiary factor in its existence. What a draft actually does is keep teams from competing for the services of the best talent on the market, and keeps that talent from having any options when it comes to choosing their employer for their prime earning years. It’s a beautiful system…as long as you’re not a supremely talented baseball player trying to have a career.

That about sums up my opinion on the draft and slotting system itself, but I actually want to apply a broader question here: Why are American sports fans, who are prone to sympathizing with labor concerns in just about every walk of life, so pro-owner when it comes to athletics?

It bears mentioning that the average fan wouldn't perceive his or her knee-jerk opinion on drafts or salary caps as being pro-ownership; instead, they'll usually perceive it as a pro-fan, because they're gullible enough to swallow the tired line about escalating player salaries driving rising ticket prices.

Just in case you actually feel the above to be true, consider the following syllogism:

A) The Florida Marlins have a team payroll of $21 million this season. That is less than the team will receive in revenue sharing, general fund, and local television contract revenues; B) Ticket prices are set as to offset player salaries; thus, C) The Florida Marlins are not charging for tickets this season.

I realize I'm being a little ridiculous there, but the belief that owners — in an effort to fade the incorrigible greed of players — reluctantly pass on the cost to the hard-working fan is even more ridiculous. In fact, it's the converse that's true: Player salaries have exploded because owners, in response to the sport's popularity, have continued to charge as much as they reasonably could for tickets, and the people who were actually attracting the fans decided they wanted in on the action.

This is not meant to demonize owners: If a product has value to consumers, the producers of that product should derive as much economic benefit as possible from producing it. When fans are unwilling to pay the freight to attend a game, the prices will either plateau or drop. But since that's not happening — baseball is enjoying unprecedented attendance levels these days — expect the prices to continue rising. And, in turn, expect the players to look at the massive revenues produced by baseball, and expect a commensurate increase in wages.

So why are fans still so reflexively anti-player/pro-ownership? I think I've narrowed it down to two possible answers (they are not necessarily exclusive of each other):

1) The media is generally pro-ownership thanks to the pro-authority bias that exists in all forms of media.
This may sound like the same old sports writer baiting from me, but I actually don't even feel a pro-authority bias is worth condemning, because it's so goddamn inevitable. Local beat writers have a much easier time forming relationships with administrators who will be in place for much longer periods of time than the players on the field. Plus, players and writers make for natural adversaries, since writers are often asked to be critical of bad performances and most athletes handle criticism like pre-adolescents. Ownership/management has a much bigger motivation than athletes to maintain a healthy relationship with the media, since it's only the former that really has to concern itself with a bigger picture that involves ticket sales, television coverage and a rather ornery commissioner.

2) The egocentricity of your average American.
I'll only speak for Americans here, but I assume that all human beings on this here planet are as incapable of empathy as Americans. We look at our paycheck and shake our heads. We look at the salary of ballplayers — guys who are playing a game we'd play for free! — and shake our heads even more violently. The envy is understandable. But that doesn't mean it's justified. The bottom line is that we'd play the game for free because we suck at it, and players deserve the same opportunity each of us would demand in our own life: To make as much money as we can for the labor we offer. If someone suggested to you that you should take a pay cut because someone else would be willing to do your job horribly (but gratis!) just to have your corner office, you'd laugh your ass off. Unless, of course, you're so awful yourself that you have no reason to expect job security.

Thanks to this perspective, the vast majority of sports fans are in agreement with the market restrictions that are already in place in sports. Amateur drafts are the rule, and all sports have implemented either a hard or soft cap on the salaries that can be offered to draftees. While free agency is celebrated, no one seems to care that unfettered free agency is almost universally held back until a player is well into or past his prime (and that most players' careers will end before then). Two of the three major American sports leagues employ a salary cap, and my gut tells me most baseball fans would support one in the third.

As Sheehan suggests, the powers that be claim these market restrictions promote "competitive balance," and that's a concept most fans embrace (whether it's actually desirable is a subject for another day). But it's never actually been about competitive balance. It's about the constant financial tug-of-war between the athletes and the owners, and it's never really been a fair fight since owners, by nature, are more experienced in the battlefield that is business and labor issues. Marvin Miller is celebrated because of his ability to win the players a fairer shake, but he's also probably one of the most despised figures in the history of the game for the same reason.

When the signing deadline for draftees arrives in a couple of days, it's almost certain at least one first-rounder will remain unsigned (Allan Dykstra, selected by San Diego) due to a contract disagreement between player and club, and there's likely to be a couple more. Management will tell fans that the player was asking for too much money, though they'll be loathe to qualify that statement. And, on the whole, fans will turn their ire toward the players and lambaste them for being so audacious as to ask for that much money before "earning" it. To this day, J.D. Drew can't step foot in Philadelphia without being excoriated, and all because the Phillies refused to meet the contract demands he clearly outlined before the fucking draft took place. That Drew stuck to his guns and refused to capitulate — which led to him wasting a year of his career in an independent league — requires the sort of fortitude that most would consider admirable in different contexts. But he's one of baseball's least popular players because fans decided to side with what was one of baseball's worst-run franchises instead of the player who, despite being slagged constantly by just about everyone, was worth much more to the Cardinals over the course of his first contract than the $10 million the Phillies refused to pay.

So, essentially: Go kids. Get that money. And don't accept a penny less than you believe you're worth.

Primaterra Primitivo Puglia

2008-08-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Country: Italy
Region: Puglia
Variety: Primitivo (Zinfandel)
Price: $12-$17
Where I purchased it: Costco ($14)

The label claims this wine is "strong, vigorous, with a lot of personality," but if you're imagining it to be anything like the California Zinfandels you've had in the past, you'll be surprised. While you won't find real Italian table wines (vino da tavola) in the States — as the third-class of wines in the country, they're essentially reserved for domestic consumption — this wine will give you a pretty good idea of what you're likely to drink when you visit Italy, minus the slight hint of carbonation that's the trademark of fresh, local wines.

Almost nothing stands out about this wine, either good or bad. It starts off fairly sweet, and doesn't linger on the palatte very long. A slight hint of dryness on the finish is the only indication of the variety's relationship to its robust Zinfandel cousins, but it's gone in a flash. The aftertaste is pleasant and sweet with predominant berry flavors.

Good for: Pretty wide range of foods, though it's the kind of red you'd probably want to pull out with some grilled food like chicken or burgers. Good match for spicy red sauces as well. Light enough that you could drink it on its own.

Buy it again?: Probably not. There's nothing wrong with it, but there are cheaper French and Italian table wines that come to play with a little more in the way of personality. But I wouldn't kick it out of bed, either.

Who I be?

2003-08-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

My name's Connor Doyle. I used to be a professional sports writer in Idaho, which is sort of like saying I used to be a prostitute because I once stole the purse of some girl I slept with. Nevertheless, I'm no longer in "the biz" because the pay is better at most fast food establishments, and I got tired of angry e-mails from readers. The conceit inherent in that explanation — that I was actually good enough to pursue writing as a career — is not lost on me. Unfortunately, I didn't do it long enough to figure out if I really sucked or not.

I wish I could justify this blog's existence beyond my own narcissism, but I can't. So, instead, I'll combat the audacity of believing my opinions important enough for dissemination by showing you just how ridiculous I look in person (probably NSFW if you work with children).

That should bring me down a peg.

Anyway, the idea here is to erect a temple to my opinions, which I obviously hold in high enough regard to memorialize under an incredibly douchey blog headline. Yes, that's italian for "the antagonist." Seriously, someone should probably kick me in the nuts for this.

I don't have any real plan beyond "opinions on shit," and a self-improvement project that involves me tracking every new wine I try, its price, and what I thought of it. Since I tend to stick to wines a schlub like me can afford, I thought it might be useful for someone else to read what a non-expert thinks about affordable wines. Other than that, it's whatever occurs to me.

I also used to write for a blog called Two Guys Who, Like, Never Agree, which is now pretty much dead.

More to be added as needed.