General: The Ol' One-Two Punch

We'll start out by looking at Major League Baseball and end up discussing the upcoming NFL season. In between? Well, it's not ALWAYS sports that's on my mind...

ONE: Here's one reason why Roy Halladay should win the AL Cy Young award, which probably will go overlooked by the voters outside of the city of Toronto -- the Blue Jays defense.

In the past, two Halladay starts, both losses, the Jays defense has botched easy double plays leading to unearned runs that put the team into a hole against a quality opposing pitcher.

In Seattle, with a man on, second baseman Orlando Hudson gobbled up a ground ball right in front of the runner trying to advance to second base. Instead of forcing the runner back towards first, then throwing for the force on the batter, which would have hung the runner out to dry, Hudson tried to tag out the runner.

Hudson did get the out, but by that time the play on the batter was so close that Hudson's hurried underhand throw got past Carlos Delgado. The batter advanced to second and instead of an inning ending double play, Halladay ended up surrendering an unearned run.

On Sunday in Oakland, Hudson found himself in the same situation (he actually faced it again in Seattle and, got it wrong, again). This time he played it correctly, but Josh Phelps, getting a rare start at first base, threw the ball well high in his attempt to get the runner at second to complete the DP.

This eventually lead to two Oakland runs that erased an early Jays' lead and led to the Toronto ace's third loss in his last four decisions.

These obvious errors are just an exclamation point on a season long trend. The Jays have been let down by the left side of their infield all season long.

Mike Bordick has been his usual solid self at both short, and in a new twist this year at third, Chris Woodward has been fielding shortstop like a 15-year old boy whose made it to the back seat for the first time in his life (eager and tentative at the same time, and in a rush to just do something). In addition, Eric Hinske is reliving his early struggles of last season over at the hot corner.

Frankly the Jays are average or below average at every defensive position, with the exception of Vernon Wells in center, and, arguably, Carlos Delgado at first. With most other Cy candidates (Esteban Loaiza, Mike Mussina, Tim Hudson, Pedro Martinez) pitching in front of far superior defenses, Halladay's success is all the more impressive.

To bad it won't likely be factored in for the big right-hander come voting time.

TWO: How can the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees spend close to $285 million dollars combined on their ball clubs (take a deep breath and really look at that number) and both have so many glaring imperfections?

Actually this year the entire AL is tough to love.

In Oakland, that A's offense doesn't scare anyone consistently, and come post-season the big three have been unable to get the big wins.

The Yanks bullpen is vulnerable, their offense unsettled, and their defense slipping.

The Sox have made strides, but still don't have a starting rotation that I'd bet on. And, while the pen has improved, you have to question if it can get the big October outs. Oh yeah, and there's the little matter of a curse?

Finally, the Mariners have good pitching, but they lack even a single dominant starter (Joel Pineiro isn't there yet) and don't they need another bat as well?

Everyone in the AL Central is even more flawed, though the Twins have the overall talent to cause trouble, and the White Sox offense is good enough, and their starters potentially good enough, to not dismiss out of hand. Meanwhile, K.C.'s staff is too patchwork for the underdog Royals to make any real noise.

But, I will anyway. The AL Central will factor into the World Series in about the same way the San Diego Padres will.

ONE: Had one of the best laughs of my life when I walked into a hobby shop the other day and saw, of all things, a Chris Weinke "Starting Lineup" figurine.

Chris Weinke? Did MacFarlane Toys run out of Division II school mascots to model or something?

The worst part of all this is that I'm in a comic shop -- generally not a place associated with a high "Sports Q." So, there I am, turning frantically to find someone, anyone who will appreciate the sheer poetic bizarreness of this figurine, and all I can see are pasty kids in SPAWN T's.

You know what it feels like when you've just found out something good? Like your buddy's hot witch of an ex is now a stripper at the biggest dive in town -- and you just had to tell someone?

Well, take that feeling and multiply it by about 10 million and you've got a rough idea of where I was at. I was like a kid who has to go the bathroom really badly in a strange building -- all bent over and desperate to catch someone's eye.

Weinke has his own doll. I'm having trouble digesting this. Why didn't MacFarlane just go whole hog and give Billy Joe Toliver one? Does the NBA set have a Rick Brunson model? Maybe a Rocky Thompson figurine for the NHL?

They could call that series "Legends of Sport".

TWO: I also got a good giggle when I saw the "James Jackson" doll.

Do we call these things "dolls?" "Sports collectibles? "Action figures?" "Miniature likenesses?" or, perhaps:

"Those-little-things-that-make-you-wonder-why-the-"Outer-Limits"-never-did-a-story-about-an-athlete-who-gets-cursed-by-the-gypsy-grandmother-of-some-groupie-he-banged-and-ends-up-having-his-spirit-locked-into-the-bobble-head-doll-that-the-hootchie-then-decides-to-smash-in-a-fit-of-pique-after-being-jilted-by-said-athlete?"

Isn't there a governing authority for this sort of thing? Shouldn't there be? You'd think it would be the same people who would be responsible for crafting the first "post-trial" un-ironic Kobe toy?

(Ok, I lied about not picking on Kobe anymore, so sue me).

TWO AND A HALF: Then, when I saw the John Stockton figurine my first thought was, "do the knee joints creak?"

ONE: So I saw "The Sting" for the first time in my life the other day, and at the risk of having my guy card revoked I wasn't so impressed.

Now, first of all I will admit to the fact that it was 4:00 in the morning, and I had probably slept for about a half-hour, so maybe my senses weren't at their sharpest. However, as I was watching the film all I could think was "THIS won the Academy Award for Best Picture?" I always thought that a movie had to make you feel something and have razor sharp plotting to boot.

I realize that this rule went out of play with the Academy probably 15 years ago -- a fact underscored when the solid "Forest Gump" won out over the incredible "Shawshank Redemption" -- a decision on par with the first Lewis-Holyfield fight ending in a draw.

On one level you can sorta, kinda, understand where the judges were coming from, but then on the other hand you watched the fight and Lewis whupped Holyfield up, down and sideways.

"The Sting" is a smorgasbord of missed opportunities.

However, forget about the fact that the movie puts the loaded gun of Paul Newman's Henry Gondorff's boozing on the mantle place and then never fires it.

Forget that Johnny Hooker's (Robert Redford) well meaning, but hard luck weak friend who has the ability to ruin the whole con, is pushed to the breaking point but never over it.

Forget about the fact that there is absolutely NO real dramatic tension between Newman and Redford, which would make the sub-plot about the Feds finding Hooker and offering him a chance to sell out Gondorff to save his own skin tense and dramatically satisfying (as it is even though the Feds do put some heat on Redford, you know there is not even the slightest chance he'd ever rat out Newman.

So despite the movie trying its best to make you think that the double cross is coming, you know something's up.

Sure letting all these problems pop up might sound cliched, but with the quality of the rest they could have found a way to make them actually work. Isn't the end of "The Natural" cliched? Sure is, but it's the way they give you the cliche that makes it go down honey-smooth.

No, forget all that, what really bothers me is a HUGE hole in the plot.

Ok, Hooker fled town for Chicago after he learned that a guy he helped grift out of $10 grand was a courier for the mob. Lonnegan, the mob boss had one of Hooker's partners hit, and has his men out looking for Hooker himself.

Hooker's role in Gondorff's "sting" is to convince Lonnegan that he wants to bankrupt Gondorff in order to take over the operation. Basically, this means Hooker and Lonnegan have a lot of face-to-face time.

At the same time though, Lonnegan's hoods are alternatively waiting for Hooker in his apartment, trying to hit him in the diner he eats at, and setting up a killer close to Hooker to nab him when his guard is down.

Which begs the question, if Lonnegan's men know where Hooker lives, can recognize him in a diner enough to stake it out and wait for him to leave, AND plant someone close to him in Chicago (and remember Redford is new in town and operating under a false identity) how does Lonnegan NOT know who Hooker is?

Think about it, the movie makes a point to show Lonnegan as violent, vindictive and determined to find who the second grifter was and kill him. Then you expect me to believe that NONE of his hired goons think to say to him "hey boss this kid who your spending all your time with, who wants your help muscling out his boss, well dammed if he isn't a dead ringer for that con-man we've been trying to kill for you?"

There is no way Lonnegan, or one of his lieutenants doesn't put two and two together and realize that Redford the grifter on the "to kill" list, and Redford the "usurper" are one and the same. No way, not when the movie has gone out of its way to make sure we know how vicious and thorough Lonnegan is.

This is the most egregious case of setting up a villain as a real challenge and then having him miss something blindly obvious since the "happy ending" of the Ocean's Eleven remake.

You're telling me Andy Garcia doesn't clue in one day that nobody from the "dead" old guy's estate never made any sort of claim for that "precious" stone he left in the vault? (Which was actually the explosives that the gang used to get into the vault).

That lack of attention to a supposedly priceless rock doesn't get Garcia thinking, and that he doesn't manage to remember the odd moment when the older rich gentlemen who owned the stone and dies in his casino was stopped by some Floridian wisenheimer who was sure he was someone else?

Yeah, right.

You know that the slime ball Garcia plays would remember -- then he'd go through every security tape in the building until he finds that moment. Hell, Garcia would hire a lip-reader to get that name off the tape if he had to. Then Garcia goes and hunts down every two-bit hustler named Saul in the lower 48.

I figure "Ocean's Twelve" starts with Saul broken and hanging bloody like a flank steak in some warehouse as Garcia beats what he needs out of him, mercifully letting the old guy shuffle off this mortal coil at the end.

That's my thought anyway.

TWO: Is there a more underrated album from the early '90s than "Siamese Dream" by the Smashing Pumpkins?

Lead singer/auteur Billy Corrigan got overshadowed by Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Scott Weiland and Layne Staley for a good part of the decade, but his work stacks up to any of those artists.

From the perfect opening riff of "Cherub Rock'" through to the gorgeous strings of "Disarm" to the brilliant use of distortion and feedback to make what could have been slow chugging workmanlike songs into tunes that give you something new every time you listen to them, Dream stands up to any album of the time. That includes Radiohead's excellent "The Bends'"

Let me know what you think the most under-rated discs from the nineties were.

ONE: My dark horse teams in the NFL?

In the NFC it has to be the Minnesota Vikings. Coach Mike Tice got these guys to finish out VERY strongly in what could have been, in the hands of a lesser general, a completely lost season.

The Vikes do have problems of course. The backfield and the secondary are question marks, but Dante Culpepper is ready for his field savvy to catch up to his incredible physical gifts. Randy Moss will take the game seriously for more weeks than ever before (though still not a full 17). The offensive line has the potential to be dominant, and the defense, maligned as it is, will make up in energy and guts what it might lack in technique and experience.

I don't know if Minnesota is quite playoff worthy yet, but they could be, and they definitely are going to ruin some team's seasons with big late season W's.

In the AFC it's the K.C. Chiefs.

I already gave the Chiefs the thumbs up earlier this pre-season for some good work against Green Bay and I haven't seen, read or heard anything that makes me change my mind. The Chiefs showed something at the end of last year when they could have easily folded over the last 4-6 weeks of the year. While Kansas City didn't make the post-season they knocked at the door and that says something about a team's make-up.

Now Dick Vermeil's squad is ready. Vermeil's amazing knack for offence showed up more often that not last year, but this season expect the Chiefs to be a handful over the ball each and every night out.

The defense, which was Jekyll and Hyde last year, saw some important additions through the draft and free agency, and knowing that the pressure is on, and with the proud tradition of power defense that the Chiefs have expect this unit to step up.

In fact it says here that it will be enough for the Chief's, in the league's now toughest division, to grab a post-season spot, and even the division title.

Heard it here first.

Huh, wow that Sting commentary ate up a lot of real estate huh? And I had a whole rant to go on about Carl English passing up Team Canada's Olympic qualifying tournament, the wisdom of duplicating the Antawn Jamison-Danny Fortson logjam in Dallas, and the somewhat laughable thought that Harry Sinden might dig deep to pay Curtis Joseph.

I guess those punches will have to be saved for a later round.