Almost Famous (The Return)

Joe:

I wish I could say my delayed response was because I was in my basement developing some intricate formula for figuring which bum-sticking and gambling-addicted baseball players do and don't belong in the Hall of Fame. But the truth is, I don't have a basement. No, my delay has been due to far more selfish reasons, specifically the upkeep of my own blog, BrandSpankingJew.com. It's amazing how much time I'm willing to spend on something that has literally zero readers.

We last left off with you taking over the Pittsburgh Pirates, which I thought was a pretty sound decision. I haven't the first damn clue whether you could turn them into a winner, but I do think you would love Pittsburgh. The Rust Belt in general is an underrated place to live: If you can find a job, there is a wonderful life to be had there. There is natural beauty, passion about sports, and a devotion to whiskey rivaled only by Irish priests. Pittsburgh specifically boasts a surprisingly hilly terrain intersected by those three rivers, and it's lively and gorgeous. I think you should move there regardless of whether you own the Pirates. I'd like to have a friend in Pittsburgh.

Your question, I believe, was who do I believe belongs in the Hall of Fame, out of Bonds, Giambi, Rose, Rodriguez and Clemens. My answer: All of them except Giambi.

Rose is the easy one. There are so many racists and drunks and other shitheads in the Hall -- not to mention some unknown number who surely gambled on baseball -- I never understood the refusal to vote him in. He made a mistake, he totally refused to apologize for it. So what? The dude could rake. Let him in.

The steroid thing is obviously more complicated, but the same princple applies: Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez were certain Hall of Famers, steroids or not. And you can't punish them for embracing a culture you nurtured. Hell, a culture we nurtured. Giambi is part of a much more complicated group, with Sosa, McGwire, and the rest. His numbers (.284, 400 homeruns) are borderline to begin with, and almost all of it was achieved during the height of the steroid era. I couldn't vote him in. Sosa and McGwire are tougher, but I couldn't vote for them either.

I'm always surprised by writers' and commentators' attempts to come up with some uniform rule they'll apply to the Steroids Era. To me, you vote the way you always did: You take all the information you have about a player, statistical and anecdotal and emotional, and you make the best decision possible, trying depend more on stats than emotions and anecdotes. You cast the vote, you hope you got it right, and you move onto the next guy.

But whatever you do, you put Bonds in. 'Cause when that dude was on 'roids, he was the best hitter of all time.

So here's something you can explain to me: I stayed home to watch golf this morning, only to have it get rained out. So naturally, I flipped to the soccer game, and made an interesting discovery: Brazil is really good at soccer. And we suck. It actually looked like a professional team playing a college team. And I don't understand why. We have 100 million more people, and it seems like every park I drive past on a Saturday morning is littered with soccer players. Yet if we play a team whose guys have funny names, we inevitably lose. It seems like we should at least be competitive, but we're not. Am I wrong? Is the rest of the world's devotion to the game going to always leave the U.S. behind? Or are the soccer powers that be somehow screwing up, a la the 2004 Olympic men's basketball team?

Brian:

Joseph,

It is good to know you are working hard on being a Jew as documented by brandspankingjew.com. I think that a Rabbi may help you in the spiritual realm, as well as figuring out why you are so wrong about steroids and baseball.

I agree that Bonds, Clemens, and ARod were all good players before they encountered good old roids, but to say sure fire Hall of Famers is ridiculous. Bonds hit 45 or more homers once in his career before injecting himself and then did that very same feat four years in a row. Clemens extended his career through injections and began it seems in Toronto where most people (including the Red Sox) believed his career would end. ARod apparently starting injecting in Texas where he started putting up serious power numbers.

Bonds may have the numbers either way, but as you know most of us hated him in college. And to be honest, his high pitched voice along with his arrogance makes me hate him even more now. So keep him out of the Hall. Forever.

I agree completely on Sosa and McGwire as they are steroid players. That is what they are. They would have been average to above average without roids. Rose should be in.

On to your question of U.S. soccer. Well, as it turns out today might be the worst day to respond as the U.S. just defeated the best team on the planet 2-0 to end Spain’s 35 match unbeaten streak (which tied a world record).

You are right about the Brazil match. They absolutely ran the U.S. off the field. Yet as shown by the Egypt match and today’s incredible upset, the U.S. isn’t horrible. They aren’t incapable of winning matches against the top teams. Yet they are not a top ten team in the world either. But there isn’t anything wrong.

The biggest reason why the United States hasn’t “taken over the world” when it comes to soccer is the popularity and origin of our other sports. The United States created basketball, football, and baseball. They are the games of this country. They began here and have been popular to varying degrees for years now. Thus when a young athlete grows up they start playing those three sports or maybe they play soccer at a young age but give up on it once they reach the teen years due to the popularity of the other three. Imagine if the best athletes in this nation played soccer? Some of them couldn’t do it for sure, but not all. Can you imagine if guys like Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Jimmy Rollins, Grady Sizemore, Vince Young, Reggie Bush, or Adrian Peterson played soccer instead?

The development and growth of the U.S. program is thanks in large part to guys who would have played other sports in the past. Guys like Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, and Oguchi Onyewu (who I think would be a pretty good football player). This has changed how competitive the U.S. can be at the international level.

The other aspect that is hard for most American casual fans is our arrogance. We expect to win everything and don’t settle for less. This can be good, but it is also somewhat ridiculous. Traditional world powers like Brazil, Argentina, Portugal, and Spain don’t compete with our sports for athletes. Granted Spain and Argentina have produced some good basketball players, but the U.S. produces tons of great football and basketball players every year. You can compete on a small level with another sport, but U.S. soccer has an uphill climb in this respect.

With that said, why do you think you never embraced soccer? Why doesn’t the average American sports fan care about soccer?