Sports Guy Ain't Got No Love For the Patriot League?

In his latest column for ESPN The Magazine (not to be confused with ESPN "The Movie" or ESPN "The Fragrance"), Bill Simmons discusses his plan to resuscitate the athletics program of his alma mater, Holy Cross.

Simmons turns this idea into a harangue against the Patriot League, which he calls "a homeless man's Ivy League" where the goal is to "try to win, but not really." Furthermore, he labels Lehigh and Lafayette as especially indicative of the Patriot League's inferiority before making the obvious toothpaste joke about Colgate. Ouch, Sports Guy--that hurts.

Like a good citizen of the Lehigh Valley, I tried to muster the troops for an assault on Simmonsville, until my good friend (and Lehigh University student) HartFoundation made a rather trenchant point:

I was fired up to write an e-mail in defense of Lehigh and the Patriot League, but then I remembered Lehigh was the third seed in our conference tourney. With a 12-19 record. And we lost to Army. Because there wasn't a TV camera in the building.

I like having a sense of perspective on this--indeed, I can get a little too sentimental about a league with three teams from eastern Pennsylvania. Plus it's true that Holy Cross and Bucknell have dominated Patriot League basketball for the past 6 years (except in 2004 when--guess who!--Lehigh won the conference tourney...then promptly lost the play-in game).

But I disagree with Simmons when he says that there's no school spirit in the Patriot League. Though the academic mission of the member institutions often takes precedence over athletic success, there's plenty of pride on those campuses. And I don't think that "homeless man's Ivy League" crack would be welcomed at West Point or Annapolis in light of the rigors found there.

How about Lehigh-Lafayette, the nation's longest-running collegiate football rivalry? How about Bucknell's upsets of Kansas and Arkansas in the last two NCAA Tournaments? How about sour grapes: Holy Cross surrendering football supremacy to Lehigh and Colgate over the past decade? How about intense student body support of other, non-revenue sports that produce national champions (i.e. Lehigh wrestling)?

I'm therefore inviting the Sports Guy to come out to Bethlehem, or Easton, or Lewisburg, or hell, even Center Valley and catch a game. Mr. Simmons, I'll show you that we've got plenty of kids with a basketball jones--and then some.

The Plan to Save the Cross [Page 2]

Fear the Iron...Pigs?

Another milestone in the short history of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs (soon to be the Phillies AAA affiliate) occurred today--the unveiling of the team's logo:


With the nickname already a bust, I was hoping for something more than a disturbing amount of orange. And it's very hard to make pigs look and sound menacing when most people associate them with this and this. Or, God forbid, this. Yet it could have been a lot worse:

''We went from a cartoon [character] to a kind of a robotic pig; at one time we had more of a Porky Pig-type character, at another we had a regular pig in overalls, like a steel worker pig,'' Domino said. ''But at the end of the day, we came to the realization that an IronPig should be constructed of iron."

Did I say worse? Because when I said "worse," I meant "more awesome." I would have loved to see a small child's reaction to the playful tomfoolery of a hideous cybernetic pig mascot straight out of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

But this a minor quibble. The important thing is that relevant baseball has finally come to the Lehigh Valley. And if I'm calling AAA ball "relevant," you know we've suffered enough to tolerate a hackneyed "aggressive" makeover of a relatively benign animal.

Riveting Day in 'Pigs History [The Morning Call]

Venezuela's Long National Nightmare Is Over

Ugueth Urbina, sentenced to fourteen years in prison for attempted murder.

Say it ain't so, Ugie. (If this is a precedent for former Phillies involved in legal investigations, it does not bode well for David Bell)

However, Urbina's lawyers are still appealing the decision--good news for teams still trying to shore up their bullpens...ahem:

"I am very disappointed and upset," his agent, Peter Greenberg, told ESPN. "We're hopeful that the judicial process will exonerate Uggie. I firmly believe he's innocent."

In fact, for all the beatings he took in Philadelphia, Urbina might be innocent in more ways than one (3.45 lifetime ERA, 237 career saves). So get on the phone, Pat Gillick. Let's see if your famous "connections" extend to the South American judicial system.

Good News For Brett Myers

Historically, the Phillies seem to have a affinity for chunky pitchers with overactive sweat glands (see: Kevin Millwood, Curt Schilling, Ricky Bottalico, Jose Mesa, et al). Well, all the equipment guys who've had to collect all their ratty game-worn caps over the years must be writing "Why didn't you think of this sooner?" letters to New Era, who are introducing a new polyester-based moisture-wicking cap this season:

But replacing the traditional wool is a polyester fabric that MLB and New Era say is designed to "wick" away sweat and evaporate it, resist shrinkage and fading and reduce odor and glare.

"Wool isn't a performance fabric. ... This is really the first time we're departing from that. It's purely to make sure we're keeping up with the performance attributes," says John DeWaal, New Era's vice president of global marketing.

Remember, New Era's already on notice for their stupid new batting practice caps on display during spring training. We'll see just how good these caps are when Freddy Garcia gets into his first based-loaded jam.

Really, only Schilling could pull off the ratty look with any panache. You could tell how long he'd pitched by the percentage of pink on his "P." One of those should be in the Hall of Fame if it isn't already.

Baseball Caps To Have New Feel [USA Today]

Eagles Find Their Next Jeff Garcia

Sure, the Eagles pulled off another one of their trademark moves in the Takeo Spikes trade, making a necessary defensive upgrade with a "name" player that likely has a few more good seasons in him (a la Jevon Kearse).

But lost in the shuffle is the acquisition of Kelly Holcomb. He's 3-4 as a starter in the NFL, but the Baker Bowl remembers him best from that snowy, ridiculous Browns-Steelers playoff game in 2003. It was the only time Holcomb would ever take the field for Cleveland, but he made it count. Well, almost.

The Browns lost 36-33 when they couldn't stop the clock to try for a game-tying field goal, but Holcomb threw 429 yards with 3 TDs and 1 interception. The winning QB was Tommy Maddox, of all people. And how was Holcomb rewarded for this breakout performance in such a high-pressure situation? He was shipped off to Buffalo, of course, to get garbage time whenever the Bills could no longer endure the sight of J.P. Losman's airborne turd bombs.

My point is that the Eagles front office is very shrewd; they are quietly preparing for the inevitable Donovan McNabb injury with this move.

Kelly Holcomb, the late-season savior of the Philadelphia Eagles? Stranger things have happened.

Yankees Fail In the Postseason, Film At 11

News flash: the New York Yankees haven't won the World Series since 2000!

Thanks to Dayn Perry of Fox Sports for alerting the public to this statistical aberration:

So what's gone wrong? How have the Yanks backslid from dynasty to playoff also-ran?

They've got the same manager, same owner, same front office (mostly), and even many of the same players.

The results, however, haven't followed. Granted, they've won nine consecutive American League East titles and made the post-season for 12 years running, but there's no doubt they're missing something when it comes time to test their mettle in the playoffs. What is it?

Did he kind of answer his own question in the second paragraph there? Though I am a fan of quantitative analysis, isn't it enough to say that the Yanks are suffering due to their personnel policy, adopted almost a decade ago, of overpaying slightly past-their-prime free agents or trading away their best prospects for current superstars (Phil Hughes and Robinson Cano notwithstanding)?

It has to be more than just the number of strikeouts or defensive efficiency. It just has to be. Isn't that the overarching theme of Moneyball anyway? If you maximize putouts and runs, you will win games--including the big ones.

I shouldn't even be giving this advice in the first place. If the Yankees want to become the AL's Atlanta Braves, that's fine by me.

So let's just leave them be and save some time on the couch for Jim Leyland, because he's the one that really needs it.

Why Don't the Yankees Win Titles Anymore? [FoxSports.com]

In Brief: Fantasy Baseball Draft 2007

Almost anyone who plays fantasy sports casually will tell you that having more than one team in any particular sport can be a nightmare. Only the most serious of roto-jockeys can pull it off. For the rest of us, the existential quandaries of rooting for division rivals are burdensome enough (I find rooting for the Marlins the toughest).

The only time that I consider changing my attitude towards this unwritten rule is my "local" league's annual draft--it's a time for bonding with old friends (and sometimes family) back home through constant smack talk and the pretense that you actually know what you are doing. There's a heavy tendency to pick guys you personally like year after year despite mounting evidence of their diminishing skills; I call this the Todd Helton Syndrome. On the other hand, there are lots of other times where people make "impression" picks, as in "aren't you impressed that I know so much more than you about baseball to pick Felipe Lopez, even though the trade-off for 30 more steals is the power stroke of a Pony Leaguer?"

But the highlight for me is the banter between myself ("The Fuzz") and my good friend Boat ("The Boats"). There's so much posturing and blatant disregard for conventional methods of team-building that we could probably get internships in the Devil Rays' front office:

With the 87th pick in the draft, the The Fuzz select J.J. Putz.
The Boats: J.J. Putz, are you kidding me?
The Fuzz: when he racks up 40 saves you'll be eating crow
With the 91st pick in the draft, the The Boats select Dontrelle Willis.
The Fuzz: and i do not accept criticism from a man who picks the D-Train

With the 115th pick in the draft, the The Boats select Barry Bonds.
The Fuzz: OH NO HE DIDN'T
The Boats: any man who does that many steroids is on my team anyday
The Fuzz: I believe Ryan Franklin is still available
The Boats: i just wish randy orton and eddie guerrero were available

The Boats: I really wanna take evan longoria because i think he might be married to tony parker.

Like every year, I'm mildly satisfied about the team I drafted, even though half of them will probably be gone by season's end. I'm especially proud of my outfield, which should kick ass if Vernon Wells doesn't become too content, MaggliFro Ordonez stays consistent, and Nick Markakis captures that Greek baseball mojo that Kevin Youkilis dropped on his way to McDonald's.

Hey, at least he's not on steroids.