Clearing Off My Plate

-- Same old Suns, huh? This thing the Suns have with the Spurs must be psychological, a hurdle they just can’t get over. Put Phoenix in a big game with San Antonio, and you can pretty much guarantee people in south Texas are going to be happy. Reminds me of what the Red Sox had with the Yankees for generations, or what the Packers had with Cowboys in the early 1990s. Just can’t get over that hump.

-- Randy Johnson is gone to San Francisco for $8M and I can’t get worked up about it one way or another. It would have been good to have him in the Arizona rotation (if he’s healthy in 2009), but not for $8M. Not with reasonable budget constraints, not with his tricky back. The history of 300 wins would have been nice to see at Chase Field, but if I were the general manager or owner of the D-backs, I have to think I would have made the same choice they did, and walked away from the poker table with Johnson still sitting there. If he wanted to play out his hand with someone else, let him do it. He’ll be missed, maybe, but the team will be fine.

-- Congratulations to the Detroit Lions for completing the perfectly imperfect season. They should be proud. The Ford family has been working on this for years, actually, and any accomplishment decades in the making is one worth celebrating. By — seemingly on purpose — signing coaches who cannot coach to coach players who cannot play, the Fords have finally finished their life goal: creating the only winless team in the history of North America’s four major sports.

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Now, if they’d like to reverse years of low-aim goals and matching results, the Detroit Lions have exactly one option. And this is nothing to do with the No. 1 draft pick. Bill Parcells, currently running the Miami Dolphins, can be a free agent if Wayne Huizinga sells the team. Parcells can leave Miami without any penalty to the team that hires him if the sale goes through, which it appears it will.
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So there, Detroit. If he’s available and you hire Bill Parcells — paying him anything he wants — then you care about football and you care about winning games. If you do not hire Bill Parcells, then you do not care about winning. And any explanation to the contrary will be met by us with the same amusement with which we’ve always treated your pathetic failures.
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-- One of the central storylines in Chuck Klosterman’s new book (his first novel), Downtown Owl, is a high school football coach who is good at his job, but walks on a perpetual tight rope in life because of his proclivity for statutory rape. In Massachusetts, former Arizona State and NFL offensive lineman Danny Villa, who was — until he resigned days ago — the head coach of the reigning state-champion Walpole High School football team, has turned himself over to Arizona police because he has been charged with the aforementioned crime. Partly sad, but mostly stupid, Villa’s career in high school is over. And he may go to prison. Life imitates art, art imitates life.

What I’m Watching This Weekend:

Football – Patriots/Bills, Dolphins/Jets, Cowboys/Eagles (I’m in Boston, so no Cards/Seahawks, but I wonder how much anyone there is watching)

Basketball – Probably none.

What I’m Listening to This Weekend:

A mix on the iPod for my drive up to New Hampshire on Tuesday.

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Worst. Episode. Ever.

Because of technical difficulties, we don’t really have a show this week. It’s unfortunate. We put together what we thought was a very strong episode, but intolerable static left it in a condition not suitable even for this web site.

We were able to salvage three segments: The Show Open, the Mailbag and the Song of the Week. In fact, during Song of the Week, you’ll get a good feel for the static problems. Then just imagine them 20 times worse.

Lost is some great dialogue about the NFL MVP and Coach of the Year races, the Cardinals’ debacle in New England and upcoming playoff picture, and the ASU men’s basketball team’s defeat of BYU in the Stadium Shootout.

Anyway, please enjoy the segments we do have, and know that we’ll come back in the new year stronger than ever.

Show Open:

http://www.archive.org/download/Show14Intro/ShowOpen.mp3

Mailbag:

http://www.archive.org/download/GrgeAndMarkShowEpisode14Mailbag/Mailbag.mp3

Song of the Week:

http://www.archive.org/download/GrgeAndMarkShowEpisode14SongOfTheWeek/SongOfTheWeek.mp3

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Clearing Off My Plate

Boston is getting a pretty good dousing of snow and rain this weekend, which is expected to keep up over the next three days.

 

Says Boston.com:

“More snow is forecast for Sunday. That storm is expected to begin in the morning and change to sleet by afternoon.”

 

The high should be in the 30s. That’s a 

high. The sun goes down early this time of year in New England, so the fourth quarter will probably be played in the dark. It’s going to be cold there.

 

That doesn’t sound good for the pass-first, pass-almost-always Cardinals.

 

-- Sixty years ago today (Dec. 19, 1948), the Cardinals lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL Championship game. It was, of course, the last time the Cardinals played in any sort of championship game (NFL, NFC or Super Bowl). The only other team to not play in a championship game in that time is the Houston Texans, who have only been at it for eight years.

 

The Detroit Lions have been historically bad, for sure, but at least they won the NFL Championship in 1952, 1953 and 1957. They also played in the NFC Championship game against the Redskins in 1991. The Jacksonville Jaguars have never been to a Super Bowl, but they played in the AFC Championship game in 1997. The New Orleans Saints also haven’t been to a Super Bowl, but they played against the Bears in the AFC Championship two years ago.

 

Yeah, no wonder New Springfield didn’t want the Cardinals. 

-- Outside of the Suns, no other team has more local connections for Arizonans than the Portland Trailblazers, so we’ll try to keep an eye on them. Paul Coro reported on AZCentral that the Portland Trailblazers intend to play former Sun Devil Ike Diogu some more, to get some post presence from the second string that is missing when Greg Oden and Lamarcus Aldridge aren’t on the floor. Diogu played about six minutes against the Suns, and if his minutes stay regular, Diogu might be able to finally find himself helping a contending team for the first time in his career. On another related local note, neither of the University of Arizona alums — Channing Frye and Jerryd Bayless — logged any minutes against Phoenix.

 

What I’m Watching This Weekend:

Football: Cardinals vs. Patriots, Panthers vs. Giants 

 

What I’m Listening to This Weekend:

David Byrne and Brian Eno, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. I was given this album a couple months back and while I liked it the first time through, I still haven’t really given it its due. So I’m gonna spin it a couple of times this weekend. You can definitely hear some Talking Heads in here, which is expected, of course, with it being David Byrne album.

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Episode 13

Episode 13 is up.

It's our second show of the week, and we talked about the Cardinals Pro Bowlers, the Cards game against the Patriots, ASU Men's basketball, the mailbag and Song of the Week.

Which Cardinal can no longer be called one of the league's most underrated players?
Why shouldn't we care if athletes make millions?
What closer's bullpen music was our song of the week, and why did we pick it?

Find it all on Episode 13.



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Episode 12

The first of two shows this week, we hit a few of the Valley sports that we haven't discussed as much lately, touching on the Suns, ASU Women's hoops and the D-backs.

Our guest this week is Arizona Republic baseball writer Nick Piecoro.

Here's a quick rundown of the show, and the timepoints where you'll find the various segments.

Show Open.....
Suns..... 7:55
Nick Piecoro..... 15:45
More D-backs Talk..... 26:30
ASU W-Hoops..... 35:35



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Clearing Off My Plate

-- Enough with the whining and crying about the D-backs not making major roster moves this offseason. Some other teams that sat on their hands so far? The Red Sox, Angels, Rangers, Dodgers, Brewers, Marlins. All contenders or should-be contenders. There are a lot of ways to build your franchise. There are a lot of ways to absolutely destroy your franchise. And signing a free agent fits into both categories. Your team didn’t go get a major free agent. Deal with it.

-- By publicizing the winter meeting so much and creating the “Hot Stove” phenomenon, baseball has brainwashed people into thinking playoff spots are earned in the winter. They’re not. You build dynasties — especially if you’re a mid-to-small-market club — in June, during the draft, and through international signings in Latin America and, to a lesser degree, Asia. But those players are years away, and impatient people just don’t want to wait for a 21-year-old college kid to burn through the minors.

-- Am I a bad person if I don’t really care if Ron Santo is in the Hall of Fame? He’s a top-10 third baseman all time, probably, but he’s definitely in the lower half (below Schmidt, Brett, Boggs, Matthews, Robinson, A-Rod, Chipper). In other words, sure, you might as well put him in the Hall of Fame. But it’s ridiculous to assume Cooperstown is any less a place if the eighth- or ninth-best third baseman isn’t in. He’s a nice guy, he’s sick and he was a Cub, so I guess that’s why everyone cares so much. Bert Blyleven seems like a nice guy, too. Where’s his fan club?

-- And while we’re at it, Jim Rice is going to be a Hall of Famer in a couple of weeks. Congrats to him, I guess. He has no business being a Hall of Famer, but you can’t win them all. Why he’s getting in and Albert Belle couldn’t get off the first ballot, I’ll never know.

-- This wasn’t going to be all-Coop, but here we are. Greg Maddux has retired and he’ll be on the ballot in 2013. He will not get 100 percent of the vote. No one does. Some voters don’t want a player to get in unanimously, it seems. So here — make the voting public. If we can’t take away the vote of anyone who doesn’t have Maddux on their ballot, then at least allow us to forever publicly shame whoever keeps him off.

What I’m watching this weekend:The Heisman Show and… um…. very little in the world of sport. Cardinals/Vikings. And Patriots/Raiders, I guess (my own personal punishment).

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Mark My Words

Farewell to the Frenchman edition, or why the Suns will both love and loathe acquiring Jason Richardson, Jared Dudley and a 2nd round draft pick in exchange for Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and Sean Singletary.

LOVE IT

--The Suns added an athletic and score-happy shooting guard, a position which has been an achillees heel of this team to date. Richardson is in his prime, and immediately becomes one of the best in the open floor and in half-court situations as a 45 percent outside shooter. His contract escalates each year ($12.2 million this year) but the Suns are paying a potentially dynamic player instead of two average Joes nearly the same amount of money, and what would have been a year longer (2011-2012) in the case of Diaw.

--Diaw will "earn" $9 million this year to come off the bench (with three more years left on his Supersize-Me $45 million contract), pass up shots, not play defense and disappear for games and weeks at a time. Though he was one of the nicest guys in the locker room, every day was a bite-your-nails day as to whether he was going to make himself relevent on a given night.

--Bell, also one of the nicer guys in the locker room, didn't fit with Terry Porter's slow-it-down style and let anyone within ear shot know about it. Though more valuable as an all-around player than Diaw, Bell's unhappiness wasn't going to subside anytime soon.

--The Suns' bungling ways when it came to cheapness meant they didn't have a 1st round draft pick in 2010, but having the Bobcats' second-round pick means it'll be an early one, without a guaranteed contract.

--The Suns made themselves relevent again, not only in the West, but to a fan base which had grown disgruntled with each passing game. The success/failure barometer for this team will only be determined come playoff time, a threshhold the organization set itself up for with its winning ways the past four years, but the Cardinals already moved in on the Suns' stranglehold as the toast of the town this season. If nothing else, the Suns are water cooler banter and fanboy fodder again.

LOATHE IT

--Jerry Brown from the East Valley Tribune: "The best argument for the Suns current defense may be that, with (Steve) Nash, Richardson, (Grant) Hill, (Amare) Stoudemire and (Shaquiile) O’Neal in the starting lineup, opposing offenses won’t know where to start attacking."

--The Suns have added another perpetual shooter to mix with Shaq-Fu, Amare, Nash and occasionally Matt Barnes/Grant Hill. Where all these shots are going to come from is anybody's guess, especially in Terry Porter's preferred style of play, the antithesis of Mike D'Antoni's run-and-gun.
Not only are there doubts about enough shots to go around, particularly with a player who's needed 15-20 shots per game to get involved, but the Suns did nothing but further cloud the concept of who's their go-to-guy late in games, regular season or playoffs. Too often, the clutch-by-committee approach didn't work in the postseason, which meant there was no plan of attack when push came to shove and they need a basket.

--It may or may not be a bad thing, but the Suns may not be done dealing, mostly because they've contradicted themselves. Porter and GM Steve Kerr love defense. The Suns had none, and now have less following the trades of Shawn Marion and now Bell. If the temporary plan is to resume outscoring people, the fans will get more enthused in a building which has increased in apathy for the past month.
But this group's championship window is barely open a crack, and there's a reason why D'Antoni is on the other coast.

NCAA Football Playoff

In this week's mailbag, we addressed Dan Wetzel's proposed college football playoff bracket. Here's the link, and here's the bracket.

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Episode 11

The newest episode of the Greg and Mark Show is up for your listening pleasure.

We talk about the Cardinals' NFC West championship, what we like and don't like about the bowl games, mailbag, song of the week and more.

We're a day early this week because I'm seeing these guys on Wednesday night:

Mark My Words

--Yes, it was the Rams, so nobody is singing "Kumbaya," but it was refreshing to see a maligned Cardinals defense gives the offense some help.
The Cardinals had 16 sacks through the first six games, but seven in the previous six before Sunday, and while that stat can be overrated, in this case it wasn't. They were shredded by the Giants and suddenly-respectable Eagles.
The latter of which was far more alarming, but at some point in the Cardinals' new playoff push the offense can't be expected to score 30+ points and drive down the field at-will - or even regularly - against the better teams.
Sooner or later, they're going to have to win 21-17 or 17-14.

--The team has every right to enjoy being NFC West champions. We know how bad the division is, and how easy it became once Seattle's injuries and ineptitude took over. It also does nothing to dispell the questions about whether this team can hold up during a cold, phyical, ugly playoff game.
But hosting a playoff game for the first time since 1947 matters, because it's another step in the process of Ken Whisenhunt trying to revitalize the franchise, which is happening.
Correction: It is a big step, because it's not as if the Cardinals have been anywhere close to this feat since the Korean War, regardless of geographical location.

--The early gut reaction here is Texas will wafflestomp Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl (and, yes, we're sick of Ohio State at the Fiesta Bowl for the fifth time in seven years), but bowl president John Junker got his big wish: Money.
A Texas-Boise State matchup would have been fun, but the Broncos wouldn't match the Buckeyes in fan attendance and subsequent cash flow.
Junker got the two highest-profile teams possible and two of the most passionate, loyal fan bases willing to travel. Cha-ching.

Clearing Off My Plate

-- The winner of tomorrow’s ASU vs. U of A football contest will play in the Las Vegas Bowl. They’ll take on a Mountain West team, probably BYU or Texas Christian. For ASU fans, it would just mean a drubbing by either of those schools, though at least it would be a bowl appearance in an otherwise empty year. 

But it should serve as more motivation for Wildcats fans. On the same day as the Las Vegas Bowl (Dec. 20, 5 p.m.), the Wildcats men’s basketball team will play against UNLV in Las Vegas at noon. So it would be an intriguing double header for the Red and Blue, who would surely fill up the basketball arena if they were in town anyway. 

-- If the Wildcats do win, then that will leave the Pac-10 — with its seven bowl ties — with five bowl-eligible schools. How pitiful. How embarrassing. And while it’s reasonable to expect Dennis Erickson and Rick Neuheisel will turn around their respective programs rather quickly, you can’t say the same for the Stanford, Washington, Washington State group. Make fun of the Big East and ACC all you want, but at least the Big East has six bowl-eligibles among their eight teams, and the ACC has 10 (including the entire Atlantic division). 

-- It’s too early to go pronouncing “I-told-you-so,” but let’s revisit the Iverson/Billups trade one month later. The Nuggets are 12-4 since Mark and I both touched on this topic, with all four losses coming against teams currently in the playoffs if they started today (Cavs, Lakers, Hornets, Spurs). The Suns, however, are currently sitting in the ninth spot, and as we agreed on Thursday’s show, are probably going to find themselves fighting for the 6-7-8 spots all year.

Let’s refresh memories.

Greg:

It eases up some of the ball-sharing issues the team had with too many scorers last year. If the Lakers run away with the division, as many of us think they will, then the Suns will be fighting for one of the bottom five spots. I think they were a good distance ahead of Denver coming into the season, but I think this improves the Nuggets enough that they’re better contenders for one of those spots in the West.

Mark:

Suns fans have enough to wonder about with this year's transformation under coach Terry Porter. So far, so good, and the arrival of Billups should be welcome in Denver, but scare few in Phoenix. For now, the Nuggets haven't suddenly evolved into a top three seed in the West, and the Suns still look like a better team.

So yeah, too early to say “I told you so,” but not too early to say, “I think I’m on to something…”

-- On Friday’s show, I mentioned that Adam Dunn is younger than Ryan Howard. That’s not quite true. They were born around the same time though, Dunn is actually 10 days older than Ryan Howard. But they do provide something really cool — very comparable players of (nearly) the exact same age. Remember when Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas were winning MVPs? They were born on the same day (May 27, 1968) and played the same position at the same time. Fun stuff.

Anyway:

Dunn: 1131 games, 3871 AB, .247 AVG, .381 OBP, .518 SLG, 278 HR, 672 RBI, 1256 K, 3.08 AB/K

Howard: 572 games, 2071 AB, .251 AVG, .380 OBP, .590 SLG, 177 HR, 499 RBI, 692 K, 2.99 AB/K

Ignore the counting stats (HR, RBI) because of the huge difference in games played and at bats. Dunn was a much more appreciated prospect in the Reds’ organization than Howard was in the Phillies’ (he was blocked by the Jim Thome signing). But the things to pay attention to are the percentage stats — the batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and, particularly for these two, at-bats per strikeout.

So let’s pull those out again:

Dunn: .247/.381/.518/3.08

Howard: .251/.380/.590/2.99

So somebody explain to me again why one of these guys has people bending over backwards to hand him an MVP, and the other one might have a hard time getting a contract this winter? Especially when one awful season when Dunn was 23 (2003) accounts for a lot of that slugging percentage difference.

I don’t get it.

What I’m Watching this Weekend

Football:

ASU/UA, Oklahoma/Missouri (on a picture-in-picture, I guess, having the same kickoff time as ASU), Florida/Alabama, Cardinals/Rams, Patriots/Seahawks

Basketball:

Suns/Jazz

What I’m Listening To This Weekend

Not planning on doing a whole lot of driving this weekend, so this segment is a nix. I’ll probably catch a good amount of some Jeff VanRaphoorst pre-game action on Saturday.

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Episode Ten

Woooo! Nobody thought we could make it, but we're putting out our 10th episode. Shocking the world here at the Greg and Mark Show.

Download it by all of the regular blah blah blah.

We've got some Cardinals and D-backs talk, mailbag, song o' the week and more.

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Episode Nine

Our ninth show is up, and you can listen to it with all of the usual methods (download it, stream it, or use the player to your right).

We've got Matt Simpson from Echo From the Buttes on to discuss ASU/UA football on Saturday, and we touch on the Phoenix Suns.



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Mark My Words

--It's Florida-Alabama week in college football, and while a few followers of this program have individual, very different allegiances (one co-host migrates toward Florida, mostly for family reasons, one CVS-employed third baseman who actually knows how to cook, prefers Alabama).
We'll agree on one thing: It's going to be good.
Florida by 6.

--Amare Stoudemire made a poor decision in using Screamin' A. Smith (I hope that name never appears again in this blog) as a mouthpiece, but while it came across as calculated, Stoudemire is no fool (or defender).
He's a free agent in 2010, at which point Shaq will, for all intents and purposes, done. Steve Nash will be at his end, too.
Such a move could make sense for Amare two seasons from now.
In the meantime, forgive us for not hanging on every word which comes from a star athlete who claims to be unhappy.
It's Terry Porter's team now, and that means general manager Steve Kerr's accountability is at stake. Porter's track record suggests there can be success here, so the Suns would be wise to stop bellyaching that Mike D'Antoni is gone and go play basketball.
That should start with Amare.

--The 82nd installment of the Territorial Cup commences on Saturday night, and since 110 miles separate Tempe and Tucson, it's a rivalry, no sound argument can be made otherwise.
Once again, however, the two schools are playing for intra-state bragging rights (no problem there) and a possible trip to the Poinsetta/Carquest/Emerald/Charcoal Bowl. The loser goes home.
And that's a problem. Among fans, students, alumni of these schools, nothing can diminish this week, but it's been years since these two schools played this game where both sides had something truly significant at stake in college football's bigger picture.
It won't really be happening this year either, and it adds an unfortunate dullness to what could be a savage-filled, shiny tradition.