For the second year in a row, I was able to go to the gulf coast on vacation with my family, and for the second year in a row, I had a very good time.

I flew into Pensacola last Sunday, and when I got to our condo, we celebrated Jack's fifth birthday, which was terrific. The rest of the day was spent hanging out in the room and on the beach, and culminated with Terry and I staying up until 1am watching old Chris Hansen "To Catch a Predator" segments from Dateline, which we found deliriously funny. (In my case, I chalk this up to the fact that I was, in fact, delirious, as I'd had very little sleep the night before thanks to having to catch an 8am flight out of Midway.) We spent the rest of the week on the beach, playing with the kids in the pool (which was a good time, despite the fact that the pool may have been the most chlorinated I've ever been in—Cathy had to buy goggles for Jack by the end of the week), and sampling the local cuisine. And despite the fact that I developed a really gross blood blister on one of my toes from walking up and down the beach (thankfully, it looks way worse than it feels), it was a lot of fun.

My trip back was interesting, if uneventful. On my connecting flight from Pensacola to Atlanta, I had a window seat in the very last row of the plane, and the guy who was sitting next to me could not possibly have taken up more space if he had tried. Of course, those of you who know me know that I'm not exactly the type to rock the boat by, say, asking him to give me more room (and I recognize that this is often to my detriment), so I let it go—it was a short flight, and he was asleep before I realized the extent of my predicament. I barely caught my flight to Chicago—the connecting flight sat on the tarmac for 15 minutes waiting for the airport workers to build a totally unnecessary pseudo-tunnel from the plane to the gate, and since the plane to Chicago was three-quarters of the way across the airport (which is the size of a small congressional district) and the amount of time I had to spare between flights was not terribly great before the delay, I made it just under the wire. I was seated next to a pretty girl, with whom I lightly flirted throughout the flight but decided against asking out because a) she began swearing casually approximately 15 seconds into our conversation (not a terribly attractive quality, ladies), and b) she had the crazy eyes. It was a relatively pleasant flight, though.

I took the train from Midway to Skokie, which took forever, and by the time I got arrived at my destination, it was pouring and about 60 degrees. As I walked the final two blocks from the station to my apartment in the rain, I realized that my vacation was well and truly over. *Sigh* ...

But, again, I had fun all week, so I can't complain.

On my way to work this morning, I heard part of an interview with Illinois State head basketball coach Tim Jankovich (you can listen to it here).  Illinois State (24–9, 11–7 in conference, 49 RPI*) had a nice season, and the show's hosts spent most of the interview talking to Jankovich about his team's chances of making the NCAA Tournament.  But you could tell by the tone of the coach's voice that he has resigned himself to the fact that there is no way his team is making it to the "big dance," and he's right to feel that way: ESPN's "bracketologist" Joe Lunardi doesn't even consider them to be "on the bubble," which means that they might as well start printing up those NIT tickets now.

In fact, Lunardi doesn't believe that Creighton (26–7, 14–4 in conference, 40 RPI), who won a share of the Valley's regular-season championship, will be in either.  Instead, as of right now, his "last four in" are South Carolina (21–8, 10–6 in conference, 51 RPI), Penn State (21–10, 10–8 in conference, 63 RPI), Arizona (19–12, 9–9 in conference, 52 RPI), and San Diego State (21–8, 11–5 in conference, 44 RPI).  Aside from San Diego State, these are all really mediocre teams that happen to play in major conferences, and the fact that they'll probably get into the NCAA Tournament while teams like Creighton are relegated to the less-prestigous NIT illustrates a growing inequity in college basketball.

Look, I understand the appeal of having larger schools from larger conferences in the tournament, and I get that the NCAA was probably spooked by the fact that mid-majors did as well as they did in 2006 (the year George Mason made it to the Final Four and Bradley and Wichita State were in the Sweet Sixteen) because they presumably don't draw as well as the big schools.  But if you're exclude certain teams from the tournament because of the conferences in which they play—and there is literally no other reason why you'd take a garbage team like Penn State over Creighton—then why bother with the pretense?

Put the mid-majors—all of them—in the NIT.

Yes, I know that part of the charm of the NCAA Tournament is seeing the Belmonts and the Austin Peays and the Maryland Baltimore Countys celebrate like madmen when they win their conference tournaments.  I also know that such wins become utterly meaningless on a national level ten days later when they lose to Duke by 40 in the first round.  Teams like these are jokes in the NCAA Tournament ... wouldn't it be more fair to them to put them onto a slightly more level playing field?  I mean, even if, say, Cornell got blown out by Illinois State on the first day of my proposed NIT, don't you think they'd feel a bit better about themselves knowing that they actually had a chance?

And yes, I know that doing this would create a subdivision, and that the existence of such a subdivision would marginalize the teams involved, but I would suggest that this subdivision already tacitly exists.  The term "mid-major" is, by now, an accepted part of the college basketball lexicon, and its meaning is indisputably negative.  If you say, "North Carolina beat Gonzaga," then a college basketball fan would think, "Okay ... Gonzaga's a consistently good team, so that's a good win for Carolina."  If you were, however, to say, "North Carolina beat a mid-major from Washington," then the reaction would be more along the lines of, "Well, yeah ... they should beat a mid-major."  Not many teams from smaller conferences transcend the "mid-major" tag, so while lumping them together in an official subdivision isn't ideal, I would suggest that it's more than fair.  (And if Gonzaga takes offense to being included in the "mid-major" subdivision, they can feel free to get out of that dog-ass conference they dominate every year and join the Pac-10, like they should have done years ago.)

And what's more, this arrangement would give the NIT a reason to exist and distinguish it from the NCAA Tournament in a way that's more profound than simply having it be the "loser's bracket."  As it is, the NIT is a joke.  A relic.  It was once the tournament, but today it means nothing.  Make it the "mid-major" tournament, and it immediately has significantly more relevence.  Sure, it'd still be a secondary tournament, but at the same time it would offer something intrinsically different.

It's not a perfect plan—the biggest problem would likely be convincing the eternally optimistic mid-major presidents that their schools can never win the national championship ... good luck with that.  But the unspoken discrimination against smaller schools is getting more pervasive by the year, so much so that aside from the day-one ass-kickings, this is basically what we've been left with anyway.  My proposal gives the smaller schools the dignity of calling this marginalization what it is, with no hard feelings and a modicum of hope for attaining a more realistic goal.

From last week's Sports Illustrated ...

Completed: Her 2,500-mile journey from Cape Verde Islands to Trinidad and Tobago, Jennifer Figge, the first woman to swim across the Atlantic Ocean.

Wow! I mean, wow! She swam across the Atlantic Ocean?! That's a hell of an accomplishment! Must have taken forever, though, since humans don't swim very fast—the fastest a female has ever swam is 4.67 miles per hour, and that was over a very short distance (50 meters). Assuming a more sensible pace of, say, two miles per hour (which is probably too high, considering the environmental effects of the ocean would undoubtedly slow a swimmer down, but bear with me) and eight hours of swimming a day, it would take Figge over 156 days to make the journey. What perseverence!

Figge, a 56-year-old mother of one from Aspen, Colo., made the journey in 25 days.

Say what?  Twenty-five days?!  For real?  That's amazing!

She swam up to eight hours a day in a shark cage and spent the rest of her time with her crew on a support boat.

Wait a second ... eight hours a day times two miles per hour times 25 days equals 400 miles. So you're telling me that she spent approximately 2,100 of the 2,500 miles of her "swim" on a boat? That's a lot of boat time. Was T-Pain there?

"I was never scared," Figge said.

Well, yeah ... you were in a damn shark cage next to a boat the whole time.

"Looking back, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I can always swim in a pool."

Yeah yeah ... whatever. Seriously, can someone tell me how this constitutes "swimming across the Atlantic Ocean?" As best I can gather, this might qualify as "a boat ride across the Atlantic that involved more swimming than one might expect." It's a nice story and all, but let's not make it something it's not.

Prelude: 2008 mop-up
This is the third annual entry in which I've given my opinions about the candidates for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.  The entry for 2008's ballot can be found here, while the entries for the 2007 ballot (in which I evaluated all of the candidates, not just the new additions) can be found here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).

Here's how 2008's real-world balloting went:

In: Rich Gossage

Not in, but still on the 2009 ballot: Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven, Lee Smith, Jack Morris, Tommy John, Tim Raines, Mark McGwire, Alan Trammell, Don Mattingly, Dave Parker, Dale Murphy, Harold Baines

Not in, and not on the 2009 ballot due to failure to receive 5 percent of the vote: Rod Beck, Travis Fryman, Robb Nen, Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Todd Stottlemyre, Brady Anderson, Jose Rijo

Not in, and not on the 2009 ballot due to 15-year candidacy window expiring: Dave Concepcion

In case you're wondering, my opinions of legacy candidates do not change from year to year (because, really, it's not like Jim Rice posted a .300-35-120 line in 2008), so if you'd like my thoughts on the candididacies that have carried over from previous years, check out the entries from last year (Tim Raines) and the year before (everyone else).


2009 ballot
The 2009 ballot was released on December 1.  Here are the new candidates, whether or not I would vote for them, and my evaluations of their candidacies.

Jay Bell
.265 BA • 195 HR • 860 RBI • 1,963 H • 1,123 R • .343 OBP • .416 SLG • 91 SB
No.  He was one of the better offensive shortstops of his day (at least until the Jeter/A-Rod/Nomar "shortstops who really hit" period rolled around), but he was by no means a difference-maker.  It's also worth noting that his best season by far—1999, during which he went .289-38-112 for the Diamondbacks—was right smack dab in the middle of a certain era that Bud Selig would prefer you forget about.  I mean, really ... he was a 33-year-old middle infielder whose previous single-season high in home runs was 20—nothing fishy there, no sir.

David Cone
194–126 • 3.46 ERA • 2,668 K • Cy Young Award (1994, AL)
No.  He had a hell of a nice career (most of which was spent in New York, so one suspects that he might get an otherwise surprising amount of support in this election), but he just wasn't able to stick around long enough to compile the numbers that a pitcher needs for serious Hall consideration.  It also doesn't help that his decline was as dramatic as it was (after a terrific 1999, he went 4–14 with a 6.91 ERA in 2000 and was out of baseball a year later, though he did embark on a disasterous, short-lived comeback attempt in 2003), but it can't be denied that he was an important part of some really good Mets and Yankees teams.

Ron Gant
.256 BA • 321 HR • 1,008 RBI • 1,651 H • 1,080 R • .336 OBP • .468 SLG • 243 SB
No.  Gant was an all-or-nothing hitter who could crush the ball, but was more likely to break fans' hearts with untimely strikeouts.  Even in his best years, he was never the best hitter on his team, so the notion of electing him to the Hall is, frankly, laughable.

Mark Grace
.303 BA • 173 HR • 1,146 RBI • 2,445 H • 1,179 R • .383 OBP • .442 SLG • 70 SB
No.  He was a good, solid, player for many years, but he was by no means a Hall of Famer.  As a Cubs fan, I knew exactly what I would get from Grace every single year: an average in the .305-.310 range, 10-15 home runs, and 80-90 RBI.  There's something to be said for his consistency, but realistically, It's not particularly hard to find a first baseman who can do that.  In fact, do you know what a first baseman who averages 12 home runs in a 162-game span is generally called?  A liability.  And really, if you're a singles-and-doubles hitter like Grace was, you need to end up a hell of a lot closer to 3,000 hits to merit serious Hall consideration in my world.

Rickey Henderson
.279 BA • 297 HR • 1,115 RBI • 3,055 H • 2,295 R • .401 OBP • .419 SLG • 1,406 SB • MVP Award (1990, AL)
Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  A thousand times yes.  The fact that he's first all-time in steals and runs scored should probably be enough, but he was also a phenomenally patient hitter (2,190 career walks, second all-time behind the bloated gasbag from the Bay Area whose walk total is as artifically inflated as his head) who offered surprising power, as well.  Sure, his compiled numbers are probably padded a bit because he hung on for as long as he did, but the fact that his OBP was at least 25 points higher than the league average in every season he played except for his first (a partial season with Oakland in 1979) and his last (a 30-game stint with the Dodgers in 2003) suggests that he was tremendously valuable for the vast, vast majority of his career.

Jesse Orosco
87–80 • 3.16 ERA • 1,179 K • 144 SV
No.  Obviously.  Because as always, there are no relief pitchers in my Hall of Fame.  BUT ... ol' Jesse's candidacy (and that of Dan Plesac, who I'll cover next) got me to thinking—if closers can get into the Hall, as they have been with regularity for a while now, why not LOOGYs?  I mean, if you're going to elect one type of specialist, isn't it a bit myopic to totally dismiss another?  Jesse Orosco was the Walter Johnson of LOOGYs, and since he did his narrowly defined job so well (lefties hit only .209 against him over the course of his 24-year career), doesn't he deserve to be rewarded in the same way as others who have done their narrowly defined jobs well?

The answer, of course, is no.  Because role players don't contribute enough to their teams to warrant induction into the Hall of Fame.  And like it or not, closers are role players.  So stop electing them already, huh?

Dan Plesac
65–71 • 3.64 ERA • 1,041 K • 158 SV
No.  See above.

Greg Vaughn
.242 BA • 355 HR • 1,072 RBI • 1,475 H • 1,017 R • .337 OBP • .470 SLG • 121 SB
No.  His numbers are strikingly similar to Gant's (in fact, BaseballReference.com says that Gant is the second-most similar player to Vaughn in the history of baseball, just behind the great Jeromy Burnitz), but Vaughn made even less contact and was less athletic.  So just read what I said about Gant and decrease my enthusiasm for his candidacy by about 12.873 percent, and you'll have an idea of what I think of Vaughn's Hall prospects.

Mo Vaughn
.293 BA • 328 HR • 1,064 RBI • 1,620 H • 861 R • .383 OBP • .523 SLG • 30 SB • MVP Award (1995, AL)
No.  From 1993 to 1998, he was absolutely one of the best hitters in the game, but injury reared its ugly head shortly thereafter and his career was severely abbreviated.  It's kind of a shame, but Mo was generally considered to be kind of a dick and was named in the Mitchell Report, so maybe his injuries can be seen as karma making its presence known.  See also: Belle, Albert. 

Matt Williams
.268 BA • 378 HR • 1,218 RBI • 1,878 H • 997 R • .317 OBP • .489 SLG • 53 SB
No.  He had some big years, but injuries bedeviled him during the second half of his career, so his accumulated stats really aren't as impressive as you'd probably think (since it seemed like he played for about 35 years).  He's also a guy about whom I suspect nobody has ever said, "I am 100 percent positive that he's not on steroids."  As such, the fact that he was named in the Mitchell Report was not exactly an explosive revelation.


And there you go.  I'd vote for Rickey Henderson and nobody else.  Rickey's absolutely getting in, probably with one of the highest percentages of all time, and he'll probably be joined by Jim Rice and perhaps Andre Dawson.  The Rice lovefest continues to disturb me (it shows that undeserving players can get in if media members from certain cities cry about it loudly enough), but I've resigned myself to the fact that it's happening, so whatever.

Later on ...

Tonight I saw somebody with whom I used to work, and I felt absolutely no desire to go out of my way to say hi.  I figured that if she walked by and recognized me we'd talk, but when she didn't recognize me (I've grown my hair out and probably lost some weight since I last saw her), I felt absolutely no desire to make any effort to draw her attention to me.  I even found myself doing a cost/benefit analysis of such an exchange in my head: Yes, I'd say hello to this person who didn't recognize me but with whom I'd once been somewhat well acquainted, but on the other hand, what's the point?  It's not like I'm going to ever spend any time with this person, nor reconnect with her on any meaningful level.

This all got me to thinking ... am I a misanthrope?  I suppose a case could be made.  I tend to regard strangers with little confidence, though I do show them respect until such a time that they reveal they don't deserve it.  I've gotten along with practically everyone I've ever met, but I'm not really very good at meeting people.  I dunno ... shy?  Undoubtedly.  Socially inept?  Probably.  Misanthropic?  I'm not sure, but I don't think so.  I'm not terribly jazzed about having to even consider the possibility, to be honest, so I guess the answer would be no; a misanthrope would probably be proud of being a misanthrope, on some level.

*sigh* ... I need thoughts that are less heavy to occupy my mind.  Like, bad.  Oh well ...

Maybe the third annual Hall of Fame ballot post would the trick ... hmm ...

An update to my last post ...

It turns out that the replacement cage and screws that I expected to take forever to reach me arrived in less than a week, so I will gladly admit that I was wrong about that.  It took me all of ten minutes to install my hard drive with the new equipment, which again leads me to question the wisdom of practically bolting on the screws at the factory, but whatever, I guess.

I'd just like to start off by saying that I absolutely love my PlayStation 3.  I use it every single day, and even though I've owned it for over six months, I constantly find myself in awe of its performance.  Lately, though, I've become quite intrigued by the machine's astounding capabilities (PS3 hardware is used by science-y types for supercomputing, after all) and interested in how I can better utilize them.

To that end, I concluded that I needed to upgrade my system's hard drive.  My PS3 is the "20GB" model, which I bought because it offers full backward compatibility (the ability to play games that were designed for the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 nearly flawlessly, in other words) and wasn't outrageously expensive by PS3 standards.  (Shortly into the PS3's life cycle, Sony realized that the cost of the hardware that allowed the PS3 to be fully backward compatible was contributing to the fact that the company was losing its ass on every PS3 sale, so it replaced said hardware with software emulation that was far lamer and, eventually, ditched PS2 backward compatibility altogether).  The trade-off for this was that the hard drive that came with the system was only 20GB, which is pathetically small if you want your system to function as a media hub.

Fortunately, Sony designed the PS3 to be upgradeable in this regard -- in fact, there are instructions for replacing the hard drive in the manual, and doing so doesn't even void the system's warranty.  So for my birthday, I asked for and received a 250GB hard drive to install in the PS3.

On Friday night, I sat down to begin the transplant with the one tool that the manual said I needed to complete the procedure: a crosshead (Phillips-head) screwdriver.  I skimmed the instructions and came to the conclusion that they were astoundingly simple (generally speaking, replacing a hard drive isn't exactly rocket science), so I cleared off the floor space, unhooked the PS3, removed the hard drive cover, and began to work on removing the screw that holds the hard drive cage in place.

My first attempt yielded nothing in the way of results.  At this point, I decided that my cheap-ass "precision" screwdriver sucked, so I ran out to Menard's and bought a new set.  Problem solved, right?  Um, no.  My new screwdrivers were, in fact, far better (as a general rule, tools that you can grip work better than those that you can't), but the screw still didn't budge.  By this time, I'd stripped the screw pretty thoroughly, so I assessed my options: I could (1) try to cut the head off, thus ruining the screw completely, (2) buy a Dremel saw to cut a large flathead notch in the head, or (3) use a pair of pliers to loosen it the old-fashioned way.  I wanted to avoid (1) at all costs and I absolutely did not trust myself to do (2) correctly, so I went with (3).

Unfortunately, I soon found that all my pliers were too large for this task, so I headed back to Menard's and bought a pair of needle-nose pliers that looked more like forceps than pliers.  I took it home and began to work on the screw, and two hours later, the screw finally came loose.  Seriously ... it took two hours.  The screw was cracked and almost unrecognizeable by the time it finally came out, but by God, it was out.  You should have seen the indentation that it left in the cage ... I would have guessed it was soldered on by some Sony employee with a sick, evil sense of humor, but it appears it was just screwed in really, really, really tightly.

So I was finally able to remove the hard drive cage from the system, which was good because it allowed me to complete my task without risking damage to the PS3 itself.  My next obstacles were the four screws that held the drive itself in the cage.  Four more stripped screws?  Check.  Another hour-and-a-half spent working a tiny pair of needle-nose pliers into small spaces in order to loosen these damnable screws?  Check.  Four more crazily deep indentations in the cage that signify that someone in Japan is the sort of sadist who belongs in a sanitarium for the rest of his natural life?  Check.

The next day, I went to the Home Depot in search of replacement screws, as the five with which I was dealing were ruined.  (I figured that if I showed up at Menard's one more time, the girl who was working the register on the express lane would probably take out a restraining order against me).  They don't sell screws as small as the ones for which I was looking, so I decided to check Best Buy to see if they had any sort of hard drive installation kit that might come with screws of the size that I needed.  They did not, but they did have an electronics repair kit that included a bunch of tools I already have and promised "two different screw sizes," neither of which was visible.  Also, it was $30.  On principle, I passed.  The clerk at Best Buy recommended I check out a computer store in the area, but that store couldn't help me either.  The computer store clerk's exact words: "Nobody has those."  God damn it.

So, long story slightly shorter, I have to order these double-secret mystery screws directly from Sony, and companies that size are never all that concerned about getting replacement parts to humble folks like me in a timely fashion.  So now, I've got a PS3 that's not exactly usable sitting on my floor in exactly the same place I left it on Friday night.  Sure, when the replacement parts get here, it's gonna be on like neckbone, but until then I'm probably going to remain a little peeved about this whole thing.

Oh, and the really hilarious part?  The owner's manual advises the following for when you connect the new hard drive to the cage: "Do not overtighten the screws."  Ha.

I'm getting awfully tired of hearing about how the Houston Astros supposedly got screwed by Major League Baseball by having to play two "home" games against the Chicago Cubs in Milwaukee due to the damage caused in Houston by Hurricane Ike. In reality, the only person that the Astros have to blame for their predicament is their owner, Drayton McLane.

By the middle of last week, it was obvious that the city of Houston was going to be the site of Ike's landfall, which experts predicted would take place on Friday or Saturday. The Cubs were scheduled to fly to Houston to begin a three-game series against the Astros on Thursday night after completing a series in St. Louis, but were instead told by Major League Baseball to fly back to Chicago to await further instruction with regards to where the games against the Astros were to be played. The series was important, and since the following Monday was the only remaining common off-day that the two teams had during the season, at least two of the games had to be played no later than Monday, since baseball's playoff schedule does not allow for more than one make-up game to be played after the regularly scheduled season ends.

Now, it's important to remember that Ike wasn't exactly what one would term "a secret." The fact that it was heading toward Houston was known nearly a week before the storm made landfall. In fact, Texas governor Rick Perry declared 88 Texas counties a disaster area in anticipation of the storm's arrival on Monday, September 8, four days before the Cubs/Astros series was to begin. By Thursday, most of Houston was under a mandatory evacuation order.

Major League Baseball began searching for a neutral site to host the series in anticipation of the storm's impact, but McLane refused to allow the games to be rescheduled on Thursday or Friday. He hoped that Ike's impact on the Houston area would be negligible, even though all available meteorological evidence suggested that the opposite would, in fact, be true.

Ike made landfall early on Saturday morning, and as expected, the damage to the Houston area was severe. McLane almost immediately declared that Minute Maid Park was undamaged and able to host games on Sunday and Monday, but the fact that power to almost the entire metropolitan area was out and transportation into and out of the city was nearly impossible rendered this a moot point.

Baseball had to make a decision on Saturday because these games had to be played on Sunday night (to allow the Cubs and Astros time to travel to the venue) and Monday afternoon (to allow for travel to Chicago for the Cubs and to Miami for the Astros for games scheduled for Tuesday). The decision was made that the games would be played in Milwaukee, with Houston as the home team. Much whining and gnashing of teeth from Astros fans and Cub haters commenced. Said consternation was amplified when Carlos Zambrano no-hit the Astros in front of a Cubs-partisan crowd on Sunday night.

Now, for those of you who feel this was a conspiracy of some sort, here's a visual illustration of Major League Baseball's decision making process for this matter. It's pretty easy to follow, even for Texans:

First of all, because these games absolutely, positively had to be played, it was decided that they had to be played in a covered stadium, so ...

Chase Field (Phoenix)
Turner Field (Atlanta)
Oriole Park at Camden Yards (Baltimore)
Fenway Park (Boston)
U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago)
Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati)
Progressive Field (Cleveland)
Coors Field (Denver)
Comerica Park (Detroit)
Dolphins Stadium (Miami)
Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City)
Angel Stadium of Anaheim (Anaheim)
Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles)
Miller Park (Milwaukee)
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (Minneapolis)
Yankee Stadium (New York)
Shea Stadium (New York)
McAfee Coliseum (Oakland)
Citizen's Bank Park (Philadelphia)
PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
PETCO Park (San Diego)
AT&T Park (San Francisco)
Safeco Field (Seattle)
Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
Tropicana Field (St. Petersburg)
Rangers Ballpark in Arlington (Arlington)
Rogers Centre (Toronto)
Nationals Park (Washington)

Now, let's consider which venues had events scheduled for Sunday and/or Monday ...

Chase Field (Phoenix)
Miller Park (Milwaukee)
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (Minneapolis)
Safeco Field (Seattle)
Tropicana Field (St. Petersburg)
Rogers Centre (Toronto)

And finally, let's eliminate the stadium that is in Canada, which requires citizens of foreign countries to hold work visas ...

Miller Park (Milwaukee)
Rogers Centre (Toronto)

And you're left with the one and only venue that could have hosted this series starting on Sunday ...

Miller Park (Milwaukee)

Now, if Drayton McLane had been residing in the real world last week and had agreed to move the games on, say, Thursday, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg would absolutely have been available, as the Rays were out of town until Monday night. So if you want to look for someone to blame for your team having to play the Cubs at Wrigley Field North, Houston fans, cast your eyes toward your team's owner, because it is absolutely, 100 percent his fault.

As I was driving home for lunch today, I listened to the first few minutes of "Tirico and Van Pelt" on ESPN Radio, as I normally do.  Sadly, the sarcastic, entertaining Scott Van Pelt was absent, and I've found that when this is the case, the show becomes almost completely unlistenable, because regardless of who the fill-in co-host is, Mike Tirico inevitably steers the program into the sort of fawning, "everything and everyone is great" nonsense that ESPN is guilty of perpetuating far too much of the time.

To wit: Today, Tirico led off the show with a statement that I think is absolutely unconscionable in this day and age: He said that the best thing about Michael Phelps' thus-far-successful pursuit of eight gold medals is that it is, and I quote, "clean".

Really, Mike?  You sure about that?

Now, look ... I'm not trying to be a killjoy here.  Phelps could very well be the transcendent athlete that he appears to be; in fact, I very much hope that he is.  But honestly, after all the disappointments that sports fans have suffered due to performance-enhancing drug-related revelations in recent years, how in the world can you just assume that this guy -- who is not only beating but destroying the competition in a sport in which cheating has traditionally been fairly common -- is on the level?

Phelps has never been accused of any PED-related wrongdoing, so I can't actively suspect him.  But in my heart of hearts, I can't rule it out as a possibility, either.  It's a sad statement about the way sports have violated their tacit agreement with the fans that they present fair competition, really, but I just can't lose myself in this chase the way so many others have.

Also, and I know this is kind of mean, but why does Michael Phelps look like Gheorge Muresan?  Does he -- or did he -- have acromegaly or some other pituitary disorder?  Or is he just a very odd-looking man?  This is something that I need to know.

"What do you mean, 'picked it up'?  I just caught it out of that runoff while you were over there texting Sully.  What, you think the lake burst its banks and disappeared and there are just giant catfish lying all over the place?  Come on ... your paranoia is crapping all over the proudest moment of my life, dude.  Seriously, just take the picture."

If you didn't see it on Tuesday night, here is the now-infamous segment of HBO's Costas Now that features a panel "discussion" of Internet sports discourse featuring Bob Costas, Will Leitch of Deadspin.com, sportswriter Buzz Bissinger and Cleveland Browns wide receiver Braylon Edwards:

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention in advance that I went to high school with Leitch and that he's never been anything but cool to me.)

I think it's pretty obvious that Will got ambushed here, although calling it an "ambush" would suggest that what happened was a surprise.  It should have surprised no one; Costas has been on an anti-blog rampage in recent months, Bissinger is a hard-bitten old-school sportswriter who's doesn't seem to like progress all that much, and Edwards is an athlete who, like Leinart, has probably hoisted a beer bong or two with underage co-eds and would prefer that the public at large remain ignorant of it.  Will was the sacrificial lamb, a role that he played with surprisingly good humor and near-infinite patience.  He knew what he was in for, took it like a man and came out the other side looking better than anyone else on the panel.

The primary problem with the argument of Bissinger and Costas ("blogs are bad," in case you couldn't tell) is that they clearly don't know what they're arguing for or against.  They seem to envision a typical blogger as a being of pure evil that takes unsubstantiated potshots at athletes just for the hell of it and calls it "journalism" in order to undermine the efforts of generations of sportswriters who have toiled in relative anonymity to humbly bring the sports news of the day to a nation of grateful readers.  This is, of course, utter nonsense, as is their underlying notion that traditional mainstream journalists can't coexist with bloggers.  They can and do, and will continue to until this whole Internet fad dries up.  Journalists report the news; bloggers (at least those of the ilk that are addressed by this program) comment on it. It's a parasitic relationship, to be sure, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it because I strongly suspect that the vast majority of readers can tell the difference.

This brings us to another huge problem with Bissinger's argument: its nauseating elitism.  What he says, in no uncertain terms, is this: If you aren't a classically trained journalist, your opinion doesn't matter, your voice doesn't deserve to be heard, and you suck.  This unbelievably arrogant position -- which isn't terribly unusual within the industry, sad to say -- is really the only reason why the presence and influence of blogs is even an issue.  No journalists are losing their jobs because blogs are cutting into the profit margins of media conglomerates; journalists are losing their jobs because their employers haven't figured out how to maximize the profits generated by their Web sites.  Print media aren't dying because blogs are making them obsolete; print media are dying because online news is timelier and more convenient.

Independent blogs really don't (or shouldn't) threaten traditional media outlets in any significant way from a business standpoint.  According to Alexa, ESPN.com is the 19th most visited Web site in the United States.  Yahoo! Sports is the second-most visited sports site, although because it's a sub-site of Yahoo! (2nd), it doesn't have an individual ranking.  Foxsports.com is 92nd.  Sportsline.com is 127th.  Sports Illustrated is somewhere between Foxsports.com and Sportsline.com, but again, it's a sub-site (of CNN.com, which is 15th).

Deadspin -- the most popular independent sports blog -- is 1,826th.  And its ranking is not increasing.  How can a site that draws so little traffic possibly threaten the very nature of sports discourse?  The answer, of course, is, "it can't".  It may change it a little bit, but there's absolutely no way that a site like Deadspin can bring about the fall of journalism as we know it by making fat jokes about Mark Mangino.

The Bissingers and Costases see this crusade against blogs as a rage against the dying of the light, but their angst is misplaced because journalism isn't dying.  It's evolving, but the actual day-to-day process of uncovering facts and presenting them to the public is more or less the same as it ever was.  This row is so, so silly, and it's sad that smart, talented men like Bissinger and Costas are getting so worked up over nothing at all.

I stayed at Cathy and Terry's house this past weekend and spent much of my time there playing with Jack.  On Sunday, after a spirited round of a game that I like to call, "Jack tackles me, then jumps on my torso", I began to get ready to leave.  Jack asked why we had to stop playing, and I told him that I had to go home because I had to go to work in the morning.

At this point, Cathy, who has taught Jack the names of the cities in which we all live, asked him, "What's Uncle Mike's town?"

"Skookie," he replied.

Then, he walked over to me, looked up at me with his big blue eyes and sadly said, "You should live in Morris, Uncle Mike ... Morris is your town."

It nearly broke my heart.

Thanks to Lisa for this heads-up about the Urban Dictionary entry about Heitz Hall.  Never in a million years would I have thought to search UD for Heitz Hall, but there it is.  The definition is not entirely accurate (I'm almost positive that Wyckoff is smaller and may actually be older), but oddly enough, the stuff about lasting friendships being built at Heitz is actually true.  I'd never thought about it before today, but most of the friends I've retained from Bradley were floormates during my year in Heitz.  Perhaps it's a foxhole mentality ... time spent in that dump, under those conditions, brings people closer together.

Good times, though ...

I enjoy Bradley basketball.  I'm not obsessive about it or anything (I'm not going to pay to watch internet feeds of games, for example), but I've found that I tend to know more about Bradley hoops than most alums with whom I remain in contact.  If a game's on TV, I'll watch it; if they're playing at a nearby arena, I'll probably go.  Since I don't really have a college football team to get behind, I tend to dedicate most of my (admittedly limited) enthusiasm for collegiate athletics to following the Braves.

That said, though, even I can't be bothered to care about Bradley's participation in this year's inaugural College Basketball Invitational.

If you've never heard of the College Basketball Invitational, I strongly suspect that you're not alone.  It's a new post-season college basketball tournament that was cooked up by an outfit called the Gazelle Group -- which is some sort of marketing firm/agency that specializes in sports business -- and claims to be in direct competition for participants with the NIT (which is a post-season tournament that includes 32 teams that didn't make the NCAA Tournament, in case you didn't know), so at least in theory, it's not a tertiary tournament.  Because, you know, that'd be pretty pointless.

(Here's where most people will tell you that the NIT itself is pretty pointless, and they're mostly right, but I won't begrudge the NIT's right to exist.  I could cite all the historical reasons -- though the demise of  more meaningful institutions have inspired nary a tear -- but for me, it really just comes down to this: The NIT is a venue in which the fatally flawed teams that whine and cry about not getting invited to the NCAA Tournament inevitably get their comeuppance.  My thoughts toward such teams always tend to be something along the lines of, "Just shut up and go win the NIT," and for whatever reason, they hardly ever do.  As a result, it's really quite hard to name a team that has had a legitimate case for having been screwed out of receiving an NCAA Tournament bid.  And that's the way it should be.)

Realistically, however, the CBI is a tertiary tournament.  As best I can gather, no one passed on the NIT in order to participate in the CBI (as shown by the fact that Bradley, with their 17-15 record, got a one seed), so really, these teams are competing to see who's the 98th-best team in Division I college basketball.  What's more, the CBI got blown off by New Mexico State, Texas Tech and Alabama, who would apparently rather just be done with their seasons than play in this tournament.  Ouch.  Seriously ... if this thing is even around next year, I'll be stunned.

But if Bradley does win, and they hoist that banner up into the rafters of Carver Arena, there'll be tears in my eyes ... because I'll be laughing so hard.

As some of you know, I'm a part of the increasingly inaptly-named Peoria Fantasy Baseball League, and each year we convene at around this time of year in order to conduct our draft.  As I often find myself having to explain to those who (correctly) point out that modern technology has rendered such gatherings for the purpose of actually drafting a fantasy baseball team totally unnecessary, I see these weekends as reunions with friends more than anything else.  This past weekend was our draft weekend.

I've come to view these get-togethers with a severely tempered enthusiasm.  It's obviously great to see Andy, Wane, Matt and Kwynn, but I've found that too often in recent years, I've left disappointed.  The problem is that during this one weekend a year that we're together, everybody always seems content to just sit around and rehash old times, and this drives me crazy.  To paraphrase something that Lisa said to me a while ago, it's fine to reminisce, but we should also be trying to create new memories.  Why spend the time and money to get together if we're just going to sit around all weekend talking about stuff that happened ten years ago?

Here's the thing ... I'd rather try to do something new or unusual and have it blow up in my face than settle for doing nothing at all.  I think back to a night in 2000 or 2001 when Wane, Matt, Rob and I were hanging out in downtown Naperville, and for no reason other than that it sounded like fun, we decided -- at about midnight, mind you -- to go to the casino in Joliet.  We drove about 40 minutes to get there, went through all the hassle associated with actual admittance to a casino (ID checks and photos and whatnot), walked inside, noticed that the least-expensive blackjack tables called for a minimum bet of $15, turned around and left immediately.  It was a total fiasco -- the very definition of the term "epic fail", really -- but it was undeniably fun and memorable.  In fact, I remember more about that night than I do about four of our previous five draft weekends combined.

What's more, the stakes were raised for me this year because due to a shift in "ownership" in the league, the location of our meeting was changed from Peoria to St. Louis, which significantly increased the amount of time that I'd have to invest in this endeavor.  If there was going to be a year after which I would determine that this trip just isn't worth it anymore, it was this year; I really didn't want it to come to this, but it was a decision that I was prepared to make.

By coincidence, St. Louis also hosted the Missouri Valley Conference tournament this weekend, and since Bradley was playing their first game at the makeable time of 2:35 on Friday, I decided to schedule my journey accordingly.  The drive was, as ever, really long and monumentally boring.  What's more, five hours in the car had led to my current leg injury (a strained quad, I hope) stiffening up to such a degree that I could barely walk when I finally did arrive.  Seriously ... I was limping around downtown St. Louis like Omar after he jumped out of the sixth-story window to escape the ambush by Chris, Snoop and Michael.

(Those of you who know me will not be surprised when you hear how I sustained this injury.  A few weeks ago, I slipped and fell on some ice, injuring my left knee.  Instead of taking a week or so off from working out in order to allow this injury to heal, however, I continued going to the gym four days a week and ran even more aggressively than I had before.  I kept telling myself that as long as I physically could, I needed to stick with my workout regimen, which I would assume was a psychological manifestation of the fact that after the holidays, I felt like I looked like -- and weighed approximately as much as -- Big Daddy V.  Relatively shortly thereafter, my knee returned to normal, but my right quad began to hurt, which I assume was due to the fact that I'd been favoring the left leg while it was injured and, thus, putting undue stress on my right leg.  But did I stop going to the gym when I noticed the pain in my right leg?  Nope.  Didn't miss a day.  My quad felt okay while I was running -- human adrenaline is a hell of a drug -- so I was able to talk myself into not taking any time off.  The pain I felt in St. Louis, however, has convinced me that maybe I should give this rest and recovery thing a shot.  After all, I don't actually look like this ... do I?)

I arrived at the arena shortly after the opening tip.  Wane had taken care of the tickets and met me at the gate, and since the tickets said "General Admission," we started looking for a group of Bradley fans with whom to sit.  We found a somewhat sparsely populated section of red-clad spectators and claimed some excellent seats near the floor.  After the Braves scored a couple of times, however, we couldn't help but notice that the fans around us didn't exactly share our enthusiasm for big-time Bradley buckets.  It was then that we realized that we were sitting amongst Illinois State fans.  Oops.

The game started out well for Bradley, but Creighton (the opposition) responded with a ridiculous shooting streak that saw them open up an 18-point lead, which was cut to 14 points by halftime.  The second half saw Bradley make a patient, gradual comeback that included a lot of good passes and relatively few stupid shots, and they eventually reclaimed the lead with under three minutes to play.  Unfortunately, Bradley's rebounding failed them down the stretch and they were beaten 74-70.  It was a disappointing ending to a disappointing season for the Braves, but it was an exciting game and I had fun watching it.

We headed to a bar after the game, at which point I noticed that the indoor smoking ban that exists in Illinois has not yet made its way to Missouri.  Now, cigarette smoke historically hasn't bothered me nearly as much as it seems to bother a lot of people, but after just a couple of months, it felt awfully unusual to have to deal with it again.  We ate dinner and headed to Matt's, where we spent the rest of the night playing video games in the basement, which is more or less exactly what I was hoping wouldn't happen.  I was too tired to argue too strenuously, though.  The idea of a trip to a casino was floated, but Matt was adamantly not interested.

On Saturday, the draft took place in Matt's basement.  We are now officially the fantasy baseball guys from Knocked Up.  Hooray.  Afterwards, Wane, Matt, Andy and I went to Dave & Buster's, where we ate dinner and played some games, although not necessarily in that order; when we arrived, we were informed that the wait for seating in the restaurant would be three to four hours (!), so we decided to make the best of it (thankfully, the wait ended up being more like an hour). Highlights included Andy demolishing me at pop-a-shot (although in my defense, I was getting fouled pretty hard on almost every shot ... yup ...) and me playing the single greatest game of Ms. Pac-Man of my life.  I can't believe I didn't walk out of there with a hot girl on each arm after that display, but the ladies just didn't seem to be as impressed as they probably should have been.  Seriously ... five stages after the banana ... what more could you possibly want from a man?  After Andy and Matt once again shot down the idea of a casino trip, we headed back to Matt's and once again played video games all night.  It was lively and fun, but honestly, I just wish that we were a bit more adventurous.

On my way back to Skokie on Sunday, I met my parents in Bloomington for lunch (they'd been in Morris visiting Cathy, Terry and the boys), which was a nice way to break up an otherwise interminable trip.  I got back in plenty of time to see the finale of The Wire, thank God, and fell asleep as quickly as I have on a Sunday night in a long, long time, as the drive really took it out of me.  It was a good weekend, and I reckon I'll go next year, but I really hope that there's a little more to it.  I may have to make it my business to make sure that there's more to it.

... I now have a Facebook page.  Do with this information what you will.

I learned an important lesson on Friday: If you wake up and look outside to find that eight inches of snow have fallen and that the alley that represents your only access to the street is completely and totally unplowed, just call into work, climb back into bed and let it go.  Unless you're up for manually shoveling as much alley as it takes to get you to the street, you're better off just going back to sleep.  Otherwise, you're in for a great deal of straining, sweating, swearing and frustration.  Seriously ... just trust me on this.

If the top story that emerges from Media Day at the Super Bowl is that Media Day is really  stupid, then what exactly is the point?

What the hell is the deal with the U.S. Cellular commercial with the cute girl who has to read her dad's mail for him?  I feel like it's missing something in the way of exposition, you know?  Like there was a sentence explaining why her dad is unable to complete such a mundane task, but the editor decided to cut it and the whole commercial totally fell apart as a result.  Something like, "My dad was kicked in the head by a mule," or "My dad had a railroad spike driven through his head, but he survived" ... you know, something that explains why he's so stupid.  Even, "He's illiterate," would have been better than just having her act like it's perfectly normal that her dad can't read a f***ing phone bill.  I mean, it might seem normal to U.S. Cellular to be around illiterates since they own the naming rights to the White Sox stadium and all, but ...

... all right, that was a cheap shot.

I was perfectly willing to let this go because it seemed like the spot had disappeared, but I saw it a number of times this weekend and now it's driving me crazy again.  Thanks, U.S. Cellular.

Until a couple of years ago, I wasn't much of a reader. This may sound kind of unusual for somebody whose career has ostensibly dealt rather extensively with the written word, but for whatever reason, I just never felt compelled to pick up a book for non-educational purposes. Perhaps the fact that I spent all of graduate school reading impossibly dense academic journals led to post-traumatic stress every time I even considered recreational reading; I should apply for some grant money to look into this.

By early 2006 or so, however, I was having a really, really hard time getting to sleep at night, so Cathy suggested that I should start reading for an hour or so before going to bed. I was a bit dubious about adding another hour to my bedtime routine, but I was willing to try just about anything at that point.

So I gave it a try, and believe it or not, it helped, and I've been reading semi-voraciously ever since. It hasn't helped me to sleep any more soundly (as those of you who have shared sleeping space with me will attest, I may be one of the lightest sleepers alive), but getting to sleep is generally not nearly as trying an ordeal as it once was.

And so, in tribute to this most venerable of media, here are thoughts on some books that I've recently read.

Isaac's Storm, The Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
Those of you who are familiar with my love of history will have no problem believing that I enjoy Erik Larson's work. Each of these books deals with significant, yet semi-forgotten events that took place during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and since the outcomes and consequences of these events aren't necessarily commonly known, they tend to feature a good deal more suspense than most other histories.

Isaac's Storm deals with the hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas in 1900; it's the most conventional of Larson's histories and feels a bit slight when compared to his more recent work, but it's still terrifically compelling. The Devil in the White City intertwines two stories that occurred more or less simultaneously in Chicago at the time of the 1893 World's Fair; one concerns the Fair's chief architect, Daniel Burnham, and the other involves Dr. Henry H. Holmes, one of the United States' first serial killers. These narratives are both very interesting (more so to me because I live relatively close to where all of this took place), but their relationship is extremely tenuous, which hurts the work as a whole, in my opinion. Thunderstruck also tells two stories -- one follows Marconi in his often-frustrating quest to engineer trans-Atlantic radio, while the other concerns another murderous doctor, Hawley Harvey Crippen -- but since there is actually a connection between them, it ends up being a bit more satisfying than Devil, despite the fact that the final third of the book is a mess in terms of its chronology.

Larson's histories are exceptionally well-researched and tend to read like good fiction, so even though his more ambitious concepts occasionally fall flat, his books are always interesting and often engrossing.

Fargo Rock City, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Killing Yourself to Live and Chuck Klosterman IV by Chuck Klosterman
A while ago, I went out with a girl who, prior to our first date, sent me an e-mail that contained the following passage:

First of all, I must say, You really are an incredible writer. You just sound *SO* much like Chuck Klosterman-- really, you would get a kick out of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. I'll bring it to you when we meet. I know you're not much of a reader, but I think you two may have been separated at birth. You'll see what I mean when I give it to you.

I'd heard of Klosterman due to his 2004 Page 2 interviews with Bill Simmons, but I hadn't read any of his work. Girl X did indeed give me her copy of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and I did indeed enjoy it. Klosterman's writing is extremely witty and engaging, but since pop culture criticism (of which Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is composed) intrinsically has a shelf life, this book -- which was originally published in 2003 -- feels a bit dated nowadays. Still, it's considered by many to be his best work, and it's certainly worth a read ... just have Wikipedia ready to consult in case you have any contextual questions.

I bought the rest of his books in short order. Fargo Rock City, Klosterman's first book, is something of a coming-of-age memoir that's framed by the author's love of metal music. It's an interesting concept, but in the course of reading this book, I had a hard time getting past Klosterman's odd lack of knowledge about metal, a topic in which he claims to have a deep emotional investment. Killing Yourself to Live is my favorite of Klosterman's four books; it's a contemplation of romantic love that's told against the backdrop of rock star deaths, and it's easily his most focused and mature work. Chuck Klosterman IV features previously-published interviews and essays, as well as an unfinished novella. It seems a bit haphazard and self-aggrandizing, and I kind of resent being asked to pay a premium price for pieces that I could probably have read for free online, but I still enjoyed the majority of the content, so huzzah.

You tend to need to be of a certain mindset to truly enjoy Klosterman's work ... if you're over the age of 35 and not extremely cynical, you'll probably find the majority of his writing to be pretty obnoxious. I'm not totally on board with everything he's done (I'm not extremely cynical ... just pretty cynical), but I do enjoy his style and will continue to seek out his work.

Silent Bob Speaks and My Boring-Ass Life by Kevin Smith
Obviously, Kevin Smith is best known as a director and screenwriter, but he's attained a reputation as a terrific storyteller in recent years (due mostly to his An Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs), and these two books trade upon that reputation.

Silent Bob Speaks is a collection of previously-published essays and interviews that are funny, but with one notable exception (Smith's hilarious character assassination of Reese Witherspoon, which has become reasonably famous in the years since its publication), they're not all that memorable. In addition, Smith's constant crushing self-deprecation is well past tiresome by the time the book concludes. Still, I read the whole thing in something like three nights, so it's certainly engaging. If you enjoyed the Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs, you should probably consider checking out Silent Bob Speaks.

My Boring-Ass Life is a compilation of Smith's blog entries from 2005 and 2006, and as promised, it's pretty boring. Seriously, it took me months to read this book ... it's relatively long and I would occasionally talk myself out of reading it. I'm glad I didn't give up on it, though, because toward the end of the book, there are about 70 pages that comprise a sub-story entitled "Me and My Shadow," which is a fascinating account of Jason Mewes' battle with addiction as seen through the eyes of Smith, his enabler. While I understand that My Boring-Ass Life was easy to produce due to the fact that the material was already written, I think that Smith really should have considered expanding "Me and My Shadow" and making it a book unto itself rather than burying it in this otherwise forgettable anthology. I understand that this would be reasonably difficult for him from a logistical standpoint due to the time constraints presented by his film career, and if I was a publisher, I'm not sure that I'd trust him with a deadline, but I think that this could potentially have been a pretty important work. As it is, I'd probably advise you to skip the book but read the story, if possible.

Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
As you may have noticed, I don't read much fiction. There's actually a pretty good reason for this: Most modern fiction sucks out loud.

I'll tell you why I think this is: A lot of people think that if they read, they're smart. I assume that the tacit rationale behind this is that reading is what you do in school, so if you're reading, you're learning. In any case, the irony is that the people who believe this are, in fact, pretty dumb; sadly, these people make up the majority of the population and, therefore, the book-buying public. Because of this, there are a lot of dumb books that are written with these people as their intended audience. These are almost always novels -- the average American doesn't have the attention span for non-fiction -- and generally speaking, they sell much more briskly than more cerebral fare. Here's a general rule: If the book that you're reading appears on the New York Times Best Seller List, there's an 80-to-90-percent chance that it's trash.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone who reads a James Patterson novel is an idiot ... heck, I tend to enjoy Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movies and own a couple of KISS albums, so casting that particular stone would be awfully hypocritical. I am saying, however, that I don't read enough to waste my time reading nonsense, so I don't read a lot of fiction.

My mom -- who is not an idiot, reads a lot of fiction, and knows that I have these views -- recommended David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas to me as fiction that does not suck. And she was right; it's an interesting, original novel with sci-fi overtones that is told through a series of interconnected vignettes that span from the mid-19th Century to the distant future. The vignettes are all written in the first person, and each has a distinct patois that contributes to the sense that it exists independently of the rest of the stories, which ultimately makes it fun to discover how they are connected. Some of the vignettes are more compelling than others, and having to adapt to a new storytelling style every 40 pages or so is a bit jarring, but overall, I greatly enjoyed Cloud Atlas.

Shortly after completing Cloud Atlas, I read Mitchell's other three books, all of which are excellent. Ghostwritten is, like Cloud Atlas, told through a series of vignettes, though its style and technique are significantly different. To speak of the meta-plot would give away key details about the story, but trust me when I say that it's a compelling read. number9dream is told through a more traditional linear narrative and is probably a bit more emotionally resonant than Ghostwritten; it's the story of a young Japanese man covertly searching for his father in a near-future Tokyo, and while a sci-fi angle is present, it's not overplayed. Black Swan Green is a coming-of-age story that Mitchell has admitted is semi-autobiographical, but it's not nearly as self-indulgent as most novels of its ilk tend to be. And while it's also not as ambitious as his other work, Black Swan Green is, in my opinion, Mitchell's most mature effort thus far.

Sharp-eyed readers will also notice that despite their differences in storytelling techniques and chronological focus, minor characters recur across all four books. These appearances are a neat acknowledgment of the fact that these stories improbably occur in the same narrative space, but they're mostly just a bonus for Mitchell's dedicated readers; said characters are minor enough that ignorance of their previous appearances won't detract from your enjoyment of the novel in which they appear.

Can I Keep My Jersey? by Paul Shirley
Paul Shirley is a better basketball player than me, you or anyone either of us know. As he calculates early in this memoir, he's probably among the 500 best basketball players in the world. Unfortunately, though, he's not quite good enough to play consistently for an NBA team, so he's largely doomed to an existence of starring for minor-league teams in the U.S. and not-as-minor-league teams in Europe. Thankfully, he's a terrifically witty, acerbic writer -- similar in some ways to Klosterman, who wrote the introduction -- who views his existence with a combination of frustration and gratitude. He loves the game of basketball, but isn't particularly fond of a lot of the people with whom he plays nor the locations to which he has to travel in order to play (the section about his short stay in Russia is particularly venomous). Shirley portrays himself as an antisocial grump, but as you read Can I Keep My Jersey?, it becomes obvious that he's just a normal guy in an abnormal world, and he's actually very endearing as such. In fact, since completing this book, I've been reading Shirley's "My So-Called Career" blog entries on ESPN.com (there's no homepage, so here's the first entry ... the rest are accessible from the archive in the left-hand column), which pick up where the book leaves off. So if you judge the quality of a book by whether or not you want to keep reading it, then I'd say that I really enjoyed Can I Keep My Jersey?.

Right now, I'm reading The Book of General Ignorance by John Mitchenson and John Lloyd, and I have Born Standing Up by Steve Martin, Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years by Michael Palin and Game of Shadows by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams on deck. I think that after I finish those, I'm going to give fiction another shot, as I've recently discovered Time magazine's list of the 100 greatest novels of "All Time" (with "All Time" acting as a pun to refer to the history of the publication, as opposed to the entirety of existence, so if your book was published before 1923, it ain't on here ... sucks to be you, Tolstoy). I think I'm going to start with Infinite Jest, since I've been told that I'd like David Foster Wallace's writing style, although the book's size is a bit daunting -- there are almost certainly versions of the Bible that are smaller.

Any thoughts or recommendations, loyal reader(s)?