The Spurs Decide To Clinch At Home

Today in Phoenix, the Suns got out early and often, building a 22 point lead at the half. They did it with activity and aggressive-
ness on the defensive end, as both Shaquille O'Neal and the previously defense-free Amare Stoudamire were physical and involved.

On the offensive end, they got a lot out of the previously MIA Raja Bell, and even some utility out of Boris Diaw, who was really the best player on the floor today. By the midway point of the third quarter, the Suns were up 30, and even the Suns defense isn't porous enough to give that back.

And... where the hell was this in the first three games, when this still could have been a series?

Kudos to the Suns for finally putting Grant Hill out of their misery, and for letting Diaw -- the only Sun with a chance in hell of staying in front of Tony Parker -- take a bigger role. If the Frenchman can play this way on the road (and of course he can't), the series could still go long.

As for the Spurs, you got the feeling that they were throwing this game for some reason. Michael Finley tried to defend Amare Stoudamire one on one. They didn't run the pick and roll that has absolutely murdered Phoenix all series. They spent a good part of the first half trying to get Robert Horry involved. They never ran a press, and didn't even flop or complain with their usual vehemence. The third quarter saw a lot of Jacques Vaughn and Ime Udoka. They didn't even Hack Shaq very much... and if there was ever a game in which Shaq should have punished a guy for doing that, it was today.

I'm pretty sure I even saw Tim Duncan accept that he fouled a guy today (along with sit most of the second half). The Spurs had no interest in winning this game; the only question is whether or not the Suns decide this defense thing is worth trying again, and if the refs continue to give them the benefit of most of the whistles. I'm not saying the game was fixed, but Tony Parker was smacked in the face twice today for no calls... and I posted this at the end of the third quarter. That's how done this game was, and how much the Spurs mailed this one in.

Oh, and big ups to ABC/ESPN for having their fingers on the pulse of the culture, with musical interludes from Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. Well done, Mouse Minions.

Mail Bag Day

Hey folks, it's just been ages since I sat back on my chucklebutt and let you people do the work. Let's open up the good old mail bag!

Dear FTT -- I've been without a fantasy sports team for nearly two months now, and baseball doesn't start for another six weeks. How do I keep from feeling a vague sense of dread that I may be getting a life? -- A. Builder, Chester PA

Dear Builder -- You see, this is why you need the NBA in your life. Did you know that right now, three teams in the Western Conference -- Phoenix, Los Angeles and Dallas -- have all pulled off ridiculously big trades (for Pau Gasol, Shaquille O'Neal and Jason Kidd, respectively), and that the game has never been better for a fantasy player... because very few teams are really tanking, so there are not too many places where the minutes are incredibly up in the air, and...

Oh, what the hell. You're probably already ranking players for your fantasy baseball draft.

Dear FTT -- Who do you like as sleepers in your fantasy draft? -- Gangsta Mook, Berkeley, CA

Dear G-Mook -- Normally I'd avoid identifying these players until after my own draft was over, for fear of tipping my hand. But since the only league I'm likely to be in right now is an auction with not enough people in it, I'll let 'em loose in a classic double-bluff. Go hard for Francisco Liriano in the classic Rich Harden tease role. While you're at it, go for Rich Harden, too. Brett Myers might be a cheap source of strikeouts and abject stupidity, and Matt Cain has to be better now that the Giants aren't playing ancient monoliths in their outfield.

As for who I'm shying away from, Josh Beckett is a historic injury risk, threw a ton of innings last year, and came to spring training wearing David Wells' stomach. Avoid. CC Sabathia is also fat and overworked, which is rarely a good combination (and it's killing me not to make any number of catty celebrity jokes here, but it's not that kind of blog). Johan Santana will cost the world and probably be the best SP in MLB, but you rarely win with that; you win with the guy that overdelivers on value. This year in New York, that's Pedro Martinez.

On offense, Daric Barton will take the first step towards a lucrative non-A's contract, Grady Sizemore may yet have another gear to access, and Melky Cabrera will be as quiet of a bargain as you can get in the Bronx. I also think Andruw Jones is the kind of guy who does better with no pressure, and there's something about Khalil Greene that makes me keep thinking he'll make a push.

Avoid post-contract Torii Hunter and Ichiro Suzuki, don't overpay for the potentially roid-empty David Ortiz, and there's no way that Jimmy Rollins can do that again.

More later, as we get closer to the season.

Dear FTT -- Do you still have T-Shirts to sell, and if so, in what size? -- A. Shill, Philadelphia, PA

Dear Shill -- The Garment of Greatness is available in Medium, Large, Extra Large and Why Won't You People Buy These, My Children Need Shoes. E-mail us at dmtshooter@gmail.com for details. Makes a great gift!

Dear FTT -- Why don't you ever comment on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition? It's not like there is anything else going on at this time of year. - A. Wanker, Dayton, OH

Dear Wanker -- Seriously, this is still a story? I'll admit that I used to look forward to getting the only home-delivered porn that you didn't have to explain away as a teenager, but that was pre-Internet, when your options were extraordinarily limited, assuming you didn't have the ability to just say screw it and go give a bored magazine seller cash and see what would happen. Now, with 24-7-365 people doing all kinds of things to all kinds of things, am I really supposed to get hot and bothered by airbrushed supermodels wearing dental floss? Come back when there's fluids involved. On second thought, don't, because wankery and sports already are way too mixed together -- witness 98% of the World Wide Lemur's non-live event programming.

Dear FTT -- What random link of causality is rattling inside your head today, that I'm going to have to put up with when you get home? - A. Wife, Hamilton, NJ

Dear Wife -- Glad you asked! There's a story in the NY Times today (I'd link to it, but I don't want to be indirectly responsible for a tragedy) about an epidemic of mid-life suicides. It seems that people in their 40s and 50s are offing themselves in dramatically increasing numbers, for reasons that, of course, no one can really talk about, since the people who are doing it are dead and all.

Now, you can wonder if this has something to do with economic stress, or the shaking stress that a society goes through as it transitions from one that depends on religion for all of the answers, to a more secular state where fewer and fewer people face their demise with the knowledge that it's all going to be paradise so long as they don't commit the naughty move of checking out early. You might even position it to technology creating a distance among those of a certain age, who have never cottoned to, say, expressing themselves meaningfully in an e-mail or IM window, and hence, feel left behind from the clicking crowds.

Or, like me, you can wonder if there's some way to blame the World Wide Lemur for the whole thing, because honestly, if you are beyond the age of 30, watching "Who's Next" and not wanting to go Lewinsky on a .38... well, I'm inclined to think that maybe you *should* go Lewsinsky on a .38.

Thanks for reading, writing, and helping me fill the bloghole for yet another day. Remember, all FTT letter writers receive a Garment of Greatness! (Note: We said nothing about free.)

The President *Is* From Texas

Normally, I don’t respond to comments in posts, and I try to keep the Not Sports tag count low. But then you have moments like this one.

STOP SAYING THE PRESIDENT IS FROM TEXAS!!! Yes he WAS governor of Texas but he is NOT from Texas. he was born in New Haven, Connecticut; lived a while in Midland,TX(football powerhouse) but went to private school in Massachusetts(Andover). Besides that he was educated at Harvard AND Yale. The only reason he had interest in Texas is cause he had ownership in the Texas Rangers baseball team and his father had oil investments in Texas. Ya'll wanna blame someone for Bush blame Vermont and Harvard/Yale! - Anonymous

With all due respect, commenter who felt so strongly about this that they could not leave a name, stop repeating a lie that makes you feel better about life. It’s still a lie.

The ex-governor of a state, who owned a baseball team in that state, who ran companies in that state, who owns a (bullshit ranch) house in that state, whose family has lived in that state for longer than most of the people who are reading this have been alive… is not from that state. Some other state has to talk the fall for it.

Look, I *enjoy* Texas – or, at least, the Not Dallas Or Houston parts of it. (I’m an Eagles fan – you expect me to like Dallas? And as for Houston, there’s that whole Enron/DeLay/Bush thing going on there. I’m sorry, you folks have much to atone for.)

Austin is one of the five best places on the planet. I’ve got friends from Lubbock. I’ve driven through the whole shooting match (and yes, shooting is the word – I’ve seen what you people do to speed limit signs) from end to end on multiple occasions. West Texas is stark and beautiful. It’s the only place to really eat BBQ. Drive-through margaritas fill my heart with blood. You got Joe Bob Briggs, Kinky Friedman and Molly Ivins. There are many, many worse states.

But for y’all (note the appropriate usage) to claim Bush isn’t from Texas is like New Yorkers claiming that Hillary Clinton isn’t from there.

They picked her. So she is.

Or like me claiming Bush isn’t from America, because I’m from there, and, um, ick.

(Frankly, I feel the same way about people on reality shows also being mammals. Maybe it’s time to research my options there.)

We all get to own this.

You, double.

Moving on.

Mail Bag Day

Fill up our word hole (heh heh) in the comments. You can also write to us at shoot out at mail city dot com. (And yes, I'm spelling it out just to frustrate spambots.)

Dear FTT,

Saw your cheap shot at the Yankees for signing the Rocket. Why don't you just admit that you are just jealous that your team doesn't care enough to really try to win?

- Wade from Staten Island

"The poor don't want a revolution. They just want more money." -- the graphic novel "From Hell"

Look, the issue isn't so much that the Yankees can take on (another) ridiculous contract as part of their Champion of Each Other / Coke v. Pepsi war with the Red Sox.

(Side note: People should start laying off Carl Pavano already. With the Kei Igawa Experience this year, he's not the biggest bust in Yankee history -- he's not even the biggest bust of the year. All the pressure is off now!)

Rather, the issue is that we're going back in time -- back to the early 20th century era where teams simply bought players from lower leagues, and competitive balance suffered.

Competitive balance is a tricky thing -- too much, you get the recent NFL seasons of malaise mediocrity, which only the league's unstoppable PR cheerleading covers up. Too little, you get the MLB years of today, where a dozen teams start the year with the very strong suspicion that they have no chance.

So what's the solution? Not, believe it or not, greater revenue sharing. We're also not going to pool all local and stadium revenues and create a hard cap for all. Beyond the fact that it will never happen, you'd also be creating a nakedly socialist play -- you know, just like the NFL and NBA -- and socialism never works. Just ask our liberal media. (Yes, yes, that's a cheap shot digression. Moving on.)

Rather, I want to see the Bill James "Revolution" option -- outlaw working relationships between the major and minor leagues, then treat MLB like it was the English Premier League. There, the worst teams get moved down to a lower division, and the best teams move up.

Since there would be no farm teams, there would also be no real need for a player draft that's larger than the NBA equivalent. Right away, you create a good moment for the MLB, who has never had any real public interest in its draft.

The top teams get to toss revenue sharing out the window and push themselves to oblivion. The middle teams get their own championships. The lower teams get to develop their local talent and fan bases and create actual, honest pennant races and competition. MLB becomes more like college basketball -- complete with a big tourney at the end of the year, if that floats your boat -- with people all over the country caring not just about their fantasy players, but their real, live, local teams.

And the rest of us get to stop paying attention to the GMs, and start paying attention to the games. The games are better.

Just how many of these letters are real, anyway? - Eric Blair, London

Ignorance is Wisdom, my friend.

Why don't you cover the Stanley Cup Playoffs?
- Brian Poppel, Charlotte

Short mean answer: Because then we'd also have to cover curling. (SWEEP!)

Medium and somewhat true answer: We tried to bring on a new writer to cover the event, but he was too busy waxing his cat.

Longer anecdotal answer: A few months ago, I met up with some guys from my high school days. I played street hockey with them back in the day, went to NHL games, and even started an NHL fantasy league. Not to be an ass about this, but none of them had moved since high school, or seemed very excited about their work or lives or families. They had also all put on a lot of weight, and they no longer really seemed to care about any sport but hockey.

Let's just say that it didn't make me want to go and scout up for next year's draft, or start figuring out which relentlessly white mullet-headed announcer made the most sense. (You want to know the real problem with the NHL? It's Canadian. There, I just threw a whole country under the bus. Let's get it on, Habs!)

As for the NHL, they are in a cycle where the choir will grow while the congregation will shrink (if you catch my meaning).

So watch for longer mullets. And not a whole lot more words.

Why don't you cover NASCAR?
- Mike Kennedy, Tallahasse

See above, and change very little.

What the hell am I reading? (Babel Fish translation)
- Miguel Sanchez, Guatemala

Judging from the site traffic logs that we now think about far too much, you are relentlessly looking for porn. Have some. We'll even make it old school for you.

(Just in case you wondered why sports blogs always go for cheerleader shots, despite the fact that, since we're all in Media 0.1, we're all gay. And liberal.)

You Ask, FTT Responds

I just stumbled across your sports blog and I'm really impressed. A lot of good stuff!

I'd like to invite you and your group to write for (NAME WITHHELD), a community sports blog and wiki started by my friends and I... because we have hundreds of people already writing (and thousands reading!) you'll have an instant audience. A lot of our articles get a dozen or more
comments -- and some get many, many more... Skeptical? Feel free to cross-publish one of your recent articles. We don't mind!

(NAME WITHHELD)

What makes you think our site traffic isn't as big as yours, Mr. Name Withheld because we might do and do it later? Is it the sparse comments, the amateurish image selection, or the lack of titty? Hey, wait a minute....

... there we go. All better now!

We'll kindly keep our puerile opinions, weak writing and tasteless insults (that Lidle/Murcer bit a week ago? *still* getting us hammered in Confession, and we're not even Catholic) to ourselves. Along with our Burgeoning Media Empire.

Hey FTT, I just noticed that your site is available as an RSS feed. WTF?

FTT's Mom

Absolutely; it's on the right hand side, in the Links.

You can thank The Techie Truth for that one. Now, instead of going to us via bookmark or personal harangue from our trained staff of starving IM Spammers, new slop can pop on your customized home page. (You say you haven't got a customized home page? Wow. And they let people like you drive?)

Dear FTT,

You have the only updated site on the Web that has not posted about Don Imus in the last 3 days. What's the matter, scared of a similar nappy moment?

Your Only Woman's College Basketball Reader

We answer with a trivia question: the names of any of the players for either team in that championship game.

Wow, who knew the Web had crickets?

Mad Love For Our People

Ever since Five Tool Tool launched, we've been inundated with questions from Readers Like You. What to do with them? We briefly considered selling them all to our pen pals in Nigeria, but decided instead to share them with all of you in a Mailbag column. (Plus, it gives us a good way to get that convicted criminal’s mug shot off the top of the site. He’s attracting a bad crowd.)

So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, your very first edition of the FTT Mail Bag. Remember, these are actual words using actual letters!

Q: Recently my wife has been trying to include herself in everything I do. My friends say it's cool, but I think they're secretly laughing at me behind my back, and I'm starting to feel confined. How do I get her to back off without hurting her feelings?

-- Jason, Seacacus, NJ

FTT: A clingy spouse is just someone who is having insecurity issues. The next time you're with her, let her know how special you think she really is. Prepare a list of the things that she's really good at, and how well she compares with the other women you meet at the office and in your travels. Be prepared to break it down in detail -- women love it when their man comes prepared -- and to come on strong if you have to. You'll be celebrating your independence again in no time!

Q: Some buddies and me were sitting around having a few, and somebody -- and it wasn't me -- popped the question of who you would, um, you know, "go out with" if you were in prison for a long time. The room got really quiet, and all five of us said "Brady" at the same time. Does this make us queer?

-- Name Withheld, Waltham, MA

FTT: Some might say it depends on the length of the sentence and the amount of alcohol you've been drinking, but that's just beating around the bush. You are. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Q: I left my old place of business a few years ago for an early retirement. Ever since I've been gone, people have been running down my accomplishments, saying that I didn't play by the rules, and that my legacy is a sham. Should I find them and crush them with my bare hands, or pay someone else to do the job for me?

Mark, Irvine, CA

FTT: In situations like this, it pays in the long run to be the bigger man. Let your next career and/or retirement activities put your previous job into its proper perspective. Besides, what can they really do to you now?

Q: There's this guy in my office who's a complete jerk. Everyone kind of pretends to like him because he puts up numbers, but no one really does. Anyway, last week he got busted for having drugs in the workplace, and instead of taking the blame, he tried to rat me out for it. What should I do?

Mark, Redwood Shores, CA

FTT: People like your co-worker always come to a bad end, so the best course may just to be patient and steer clear of him in any kind of social or work interaction. Be polite but distant, and don't drag yourself to his level by engaging in acts of revenge.

Besides, unless your business is truly run by incompetents, this kind of behavior will result in termination. When the dust settles, you don't want this person to harbor ill feelings, since they've already shown themselves to be outside of the bounds of human decency.

Q: Did I kill anyone? Did we have the castle there with the vampires and the Frankenstein, and the bugs and lizards dying in the desert? A lot of what they pushed off on me is not me. Getting up every day and going through this again and again is hard. Good for some may not be the same for others. I didn't want to scare you guys out of the neighborhood right away.

Ron, Manteca, CA

FTT: Thanks for writing!

Q: Don't you think that letters columns (and chat transcripts, for that matter) are just a dishonest way to pump out new content that requires almost no imagination or creativity? Answer this letter or I'll start my own blog and say mean things about you.

Dan, Philadelphia, PA

FTT: Thanks for writing!

* * * * *

And that's it for this edition of the Mailbag. Keep those letters coming, folks!