Armageddon It

The End truly is Nigh if I'm gearing up to play in a WSOP Event.

Awfully sleepy today having stayed up most of the night to see the new Star Wars.

I made a jopke.

I was trying to explain to an outraged Geek why I'd never seen Episodes 5 and 6 (perhaps it has something to do with the stupid numbering system), but couldn't come up with a concrete answer. "Star Wars" was huge, of course. And I saw it more than once in the theater. By the time the others came around, I guess I had other things on my mind, like trying to get my hand inside Tanya Elkins' bra. In fact, the only movie from that Era that I remember desperately needing to see was "Fast Times."

As I told Chris, maybe if Phoebe Cates bared her breastises in "Jedi," I'd have been more likely to see it.

Regardless, I hope you all had fun costing the economy $627 million with your calling in sick today.

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I'm heading out to Crystal Park Casino tomorrow night for their $12+$3 re-buy tourney. Call it the Education of Me. Any LA bloggers care to come with? Shoot me an e-mail. Tourney starts at 7.

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No poker last night, so I've got nothing for you on that front. Leave now if you don't want to be subjected to basebal talk.

I'm a big fan of Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, on ESPN.com. He's roughly my age with the same cultural frame of reference and he's entertaining regarding sports, instead of being in the mold of a usual columnist: overly opinionated and sanctimonious. He seems to know more about his subject matter, taking the tactic of being a fan, rather than some holier-than-thou informer of insider information. He's not the classic Ink Stained Wretch, pontificating on high to us lowly consumers searching for Truth about our ball clubs. He's a guy sitting on the other side of the table in the grimy pub arguing sports with equals.

Well Bill, today I'm leaning across the table with one thing to say to you:

Lick My Balls.

This is what he wrote:

After watching the Red Sox play Oakland five times in the past week and a half, I'm ready to start popping Prozacs. Is there a more depressing team on the planet than Oakland? Every A's batter is hitting between .180 and .220. Poor Jason Kendall ... it looks like they're forcing him to live under a bridge between games. Barry Zito is feeling the pressure of a guy who's killing tens of thousands of roto teams across the country. Octavio Dotel looks like he's bringing his suitcase to the stadium every day in case they trade him. And so on. During last night's comeback by the Sox, it seems like 95 percent of the crowd was cheering for Boston. If they don't fire Ken Macha soon, they're going to find him hanging in the dugout within the next 3 days.

(What a bad situation. I think Michael Lewis needs to write a new prologue for "Moneyball" titled, "OK, maybe I was wrong.")

Yeah, the A's suck (though not enough to prevent them winnning 2 of 3 from the Sawx this week). But the "Moneyball" shot is beyond ignorant and TYPICAL of the very commentators Simmons has gone out of his way to convince us he is not.

A lot of people have a misconception about "Moneyball." Some idiots think A's GM Billy Beane wrote it. Others think it trumpets On Base Percentage as the Holy Grail of Baseball Superiority.

No. What it is, at its base, is a team, with limited resources, attempting to exploit market inefficiencies in the game and managing to do it very well for an extended period of time. At the time the book was written, OBP was an undervalued skill. Only three years later, that's not the case. So, perhaps the A's DID know something.

But that's not even really the point. The point is, this team with limited resources has averaged more than 90 wins a season the last 5 years (a better winning percentage than...oh, I don't know...the Red Sox?). Yet, because they are sucking ass for 40 games THIS season, Simmons thinks it renders the entire philosophy invalid.

Let's see, five seasons...40 games...5 seasons...40 games. Which would be a more accurate barometer of a team's worth?

Sample size matters, Bill.

Maybe you were just being cute. Fine. As long as you know exactly what kind of company that sort of behavior puts you in. It rhymes with Shaughnessy.