Kerry Wood Was Special

Even though he will forever be remembered for one, Kerry Wood was much more important than his numbers. Everyone brings up his 20 strikeout game, and it is for good reason. Just look at this video. It's almost unfathomable that a pitcher could be that good. But he really was. He was not the best Cub of my lifetime, but he may have been the greatest. It's the reason articles like this one hit me on a level that most sports articles can't. When he retired, I really just wanted to read any interesting article I could find about him. Like many Cubs fans, I wanted to hang on to something that was gone.

He was the most Cub player of the last twenty years. Mark Grace is up there, but not quite. He went to Arizona and won a World Series, and as Cubs fans, we all felt great for him. But he never came back. Kerry left too. First to the Indians, and then traded to the Yankees. But he came back. Nobody ever comes back. Leaving the Cubs is supposed to be a blessing. Only Kerry would (pun unavoidable) come back to the curse.

He had opportunities to go other places, but he said he wanted to live in Chicago. Hell, he still could have gone to the White Sox for more money and lived in Chicago, but he couldn't do that. He hated the White Sox. And he really hated the fucking Cardinals. "Fuck those guys" was always the fan's attitude, but it's really something special when the players feel the same way.

And maybe it means a little more to people around my age. That 1998 Cubs team will forever remain my favorite team of all time, and this marks the end of that team in the major leagues. Kerry Wood was the last member to still be playing baseball. And a part of me always remembered that anytime I saw Wood take the mound. I will never have that experience again. I won't see a player and instantly be taken back to Sosa's historic season, Glenallen Hill hitting absolute bombs, Oh Henry! bars covering the field, Gary Gaetti crushing the ball after being a late season pickup, Rod Beck's heart attack inducing saves, hell, even Brant Brown's drop brings back nostalgia, but now it's gone. I won't watch life baseball and be taken back to that team.

Honestly, that sucks. But even though Kerry Wood's career may have not lived up to the hype, it certainly didn't suck. It was awesome. I came around about 20 years too late to see Ernie Banks, and although he'll never be Mr. Cub, Kerry Wood is my generation's version of it.

He put himself on the map in his fifth start because of his strikeouts. In a storybook ending, he finished his career like this.

We'll miss you, Kerry. Thanks for the memories.

Andrew Luck Is a Better Prospect Than Peyton Manning Was

As Prospects, Andrew Luck Is Better Than Peyton Manning

I know what many of you are thinking right now, “DURR, this is stupid, there is no way you can say that Andrew Luck is better than one of the five best quarterbacks of all time, DURR.” I understand your opinion. To clarify, I am not saying he will be a better quarterback, but that he is a better prospect. If you put these two in the same draft, there is no way that Peyton Manning is selected before Andrew Luck.

There is absolutely nothing that Peyton Manning showed in college that would put him ahead of Andrew Luck. Luck is basically just a more athletic Manning. I am trying to think of all the ways that Manning could be considered better than Luck, and there just isn’t one.

Arm strength is Manning’s best shot, but I’d call it a wash. Neither guy has a rocket, but they both have very good arms, and I do not see a discernible difference between the two.

Reading defenses is not something that I could give either guy an edge, because both do a great job before and during the play.

Having the ability to throw every ball on the route tree is something that both could do.

They both have great footwork.

They were both excellent at playfakes.

And then we look at athleticism, and Luck has a decent advantage. The guy is an all-around athlete, and Manning, although he was much more athletic in college, is not on the same level as Luck. 

On top of that, both had a player come out of nowhere and have a great final year before the draft. Manning was challenged by Ryan Leaf for the number one spot in the draft. Meanwhile, as great was Robert Griffin III was, nobody ever seriously considered taking him over Andrew Luck at the number one spot. I feel like RGIII is at least the prospect that Ryan Leaf was (and in my mind, much better), but Luck was never challenged as the best player in the draft.

Luck is the better prospect. Manning, until his neck injury, reached his full potential. That is incredibly rare. If Luck is able to do the same, he will be even better than Peyton Manning.

Alfonzo Dennard: The Steal of the 2012 NFL Draft

Today will mark day two of my three day belated rant about the NFL Draft. Yesterday, I went over a player that I was not a fan of in Kirk Cousins, so today, I will go over the biggest steal in the draft, Alfonzo Dennard. 


I love Alfonzo Dennard. I would have gladly the Bears taken him in round two (although I do like the Alshon Jeffrey pick), and there is no way I would have let him get past round three if I had any say in an NFL Draft room. Unfortunately for me and Mr. Dennard, I do not have that power, so he dropped to round seven where he was taken by the New England Patriots. 


Dennard's precipitous fall was caused by a run-in with the law right before the draft. This did not stop Todd McShay from sounding like a jackass. He immediately attributed his fall to a disappointing 2011, while adding that Dennard is "occasionally physical." We'll attack the latter first. Occasionally physical? It took four cops to restrain him. Dude is a beast. He is as physical as it gets at the corner position. That is specifically why I loved watching him so much.


And onto that first point. In Dennard's disappointing year, he was named Big Ten's Defensive Back of the Year. Basically, the only thing that was disappointing was his lack of interceptions. He can hardly be blamed for that, because quarterbacks were forced to throw away from his side as he blanketed the best receiver on the field. If you watched him play, you would notice that he shut opposing receivers down. As an Iowa fan, I saw it first-hand with the way he dominated Marvin McNutt. 


A big knock on him is that he is not tall enough at only 5’10”, but this completely fails to recognize the physicality that he brings to the position. The other knock is that he didn’t have a good 40 time, so clearly speed is an issue. If that were the case, you would think the size of B.J. Cunningham and the speed of Keshawn Martin would have destroyed the Nebraska defense. Kirk Cousins did tear them apart by going 11/27 for 86 yards and an interception. Kirk Cousins is a leader and a winner, but he did neither against Nebraska. Alfonzo Dennard is so good that he can negate the power of intangibles.


Seriously, look at this video of Dennard dominating Michigan State. If you like cornerback play, you better have a woman around, because this will make you rock hard:

I still cannot get over the fact that he lasted until the seventh round. I would have pushed for him in the second and without a doubt would have taken him in the third. I would be very surprised if he isn’t starting for the Patriots at some point during this season.


So, yeah, I love Alfonzo Dennard.

Kirk Cousins and the Power of Intangibles

As you may have read on this site previously, I am not a fan of Kirk Cousins. Well, let me rephrase that, I am not a fan of Kirk Cousins…as a football player. He seems like a totally decent human being. Yeah, he beat my Hawkeyes last year, but I really can’t fault him for that. Also, he lost a few before that, so there is no animosity towards him for that.

But, I just don’t get it. People say he is a “leader.” People also talk about how he is a “winner.” He is not some epic winning quarterback who needs to be hailed as a savior, because Michigan State didn’t win that much with him at quarterback. And as for the leader part, nobody gives a shit how charismatic you are if you can’t back it up. If you’re not a good quarterback, nobody is going to care that you can wax poetically about the values of working hard and overcoming all obstacles.

Todd McShay and Trent Dilfer about had a heart attack when he was drafted by the Redskins, because he wasn’t going to have a chance to come in and compete for a starting job. This was in the fourth round of the draft. There was no team that was going to give him a shot to compete for a starting job right away. He came into his senior year talking about how he was going to have improved footwork, and he had the same shitty footwork as before. He makes a lot of dumb throws. His balls are not that accurate, and he was saved by good catches from Cunningham and Martin. He gives great speeches, but that doesn’t make him a great quarterback; it doesn’t even make him a great leader.

I think that too often, people fall in love with the person instead of the player. This is why we hear about intangibles. Danny Wuerffel was a winner, Craig Krenzel had intangibles coming out of his ass, but that didn’t make them great players, nor will Kirk Cousins’ intangibles help him win any football games at the next level. He was a good college quarterback, but there are major red flags with how that will translate to the next level. Personally, I’m going to weigh the things that I can see much more heavily than the things that I can’t.

Intangibles are great, but I’ll take tangibles over them every single time.

What Would Men Do Without Sports?

This question never crossed my mind, because I didn’t know there were guys out there who didn’t like sports. Then I ran into real-life guys who had no interest in sports. I had always figured that, at worst, guys would have an interest in a borderline sport like soccer (I love pissing off soccer fans). But seriously, there are actually guys out there that have no interest in sports. I honestly don’t know what I would do with my life if I didn’t like sports.

When I’m at work, the only thing that gets me through the day is reading about sports in between the mundane and repetitive work that my job entails. I guess I could talk to the people I work with, but that is a situation I like to avoid as much as possible.

This doesn’t include all the time I spend watching sports on TV. Yes, there is a lot of good television on that does not involve sports, but just think about anytime you go out drinking. I went out for Cinco de Mayo, but also watched the UFC fights as well as the NBA, because the only alternative was talking with my idiot buddies. They’re great friends, but they are also much better in small doses.

Plus, how in the hell did people learn math without sports? Their teachers? Fuck that. I could multiply by 7s better than any other number, because of running up the score on Tecmo Super Bowl. I knew how to do division, because I needed to know how to figure out Kirby Puckett’s new batting average after going 3-for-4 in a game.

I honestly would have no idea how to push myself without sports. I remember being in junior high and running underneath the heater while bundled up in sweatshirts and sweatpants to lose that last pound so I could make weight for wrestling. I remember running sprints at the end of practice when my legs were screaming for me to stop, but to continue on through, not because I wanted to, but because that’s what you did.

Sports taught me emotion. The highest of highs and the lowest of lows almost always involved sports.  I remember watching the 2008 Cubs clinch the division against the Cardinals, and my buddies and I staying for an hour after the game just drinking and having a great time. It’s not always great. When the 1998 Cubs got eliminated from the playoffs by the Braves, I cried. I was fourteen years old, and I realize that that makes me look like a crybaby bitch, but I loved that team. RIP Rod Beck.

So what do guys do without sports? I actually found out recently. There I was, having a completely normal discussion about sports and the value that Hulk Hogan created in our society. They looked at me as if I wasn’t even speaking English. Then these two assclowns went back and forth on the Lifetime movies they like to watch. My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to tell them to get fucked. I wanted to tell them how worthless their lives were. I wanted to do society a favor and end them. Lucky for them, I needed to get back to my computer to see how my fantasy baseball team was doing.

See? Sports can even keep you out of prison.

Sports are the best.