RickRo'ed by the possibilities

What a treat to watch Ricky Romero dole out nastiness in various and sundry forms last night. Heaters up to 94 miles per hour that landed in John Buck's glove with a SNAP. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes that made our knees buckle. Curveballs that fell vertically more than foot. Two-seamers with more than five and a half inches if horizontal movement. So much movement that we were as nauseous as the White Sox hitters in the end.

(Can you tell that we've just started mucking about on Brooks Baseball? If only we knew what we were talking about!)

As we watched last night's performance, we thought back to the years-upon-years of piled up snark that was directed towards Romero and his selection with the sixth pick in 2005. We thought of all the time that his selection ahead of Troy Tulowitzki (and other notable starters like Mike Pelfrey, Wade Townsend and Lance Broadway) was held up as the shining example of how this franchise was adrift and would spend decades in the wilderness trying to make up for the lost opportunity of a high draft pick.

And then we looked and saw RickRo in all his glory, looking like a pitcher who is finally starting to piece together his repertoire and his mental approach and put them into action with a sound game plan. Some pitching prospects might dazzle and blow away the scouts and pundits at first blush, but Romero never seemed like that sort of pitcher to us. He strikes us as more as a Tom Glavine-type: A pitcher whose progress is not based on harnessing otherworldly physical gifts, but rather, in maximizing the return on the skills that he has, and in being the man in control of game as often as possible.

As a 24 year-old in Atlanta, Glavine posted a 4.28 ERA and a 1.45 WHIP, while Romero's 24th year season saw him post numbers in a similar range: 4.30 and 1.55. Glavine went on to win the Cy Young the next season and finish in the top three of the voting five other times. Which isn't to say that we should be clearing space on RickRo's mantle just yet.

But after last night's performance, it's hard not to get excited by the possibilities.

Newest entry on The Enemies List - A.J. Pierzynski
If any of you have your "A.J. is a Douche" signs left over from Mr. Burnett's return last year, tonight might be a good time to bring them down to the RC. We're not blaming him for RickRo losing the no-hitter as some have, but we're more than a little stunned to see umpires give him the benefit of the doubt on his phantom hit-by-pitch last night given his shenanigans in the past.

We're not sure what is the most appropriate punishment at this point: A Brandon Morrow heater in the ribs? A strike zone several inches tighter for his pitchers in tonight's game? Where's Michael Barrett when we need him?

So long, Moose

Right off the top, let me get something out of the way: I am petty, vindictive, and a bit (?) of an ass myself. Now that I've cleared that up, let me get one more "fuck you, Mike Mussina" post out of my system. Don't act surprised - you knew this was coming....

First, let me congratulate Archie's big dumb friend on a great career - possibly a Hall of Fame career - and for going out on top (his first 20 win season). It's not often you see players potentially walk away from another ten or twenty million dollar contract. Another point in Mussina's favor is that he was a pretty loyal guy, having spent his 17 year career split between just two teams, the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees. Yet another check in the "good" box is that all of his accomplishments came pitching out of the notorious AL East.

To further honor Mussina, I'm thinking about planning a little road trip to New York next summer. I'd like to be there when they celebrate his career and retirement with a pre-game ceremony. I just hope the proceedings don't delay the start of the game at all, because, in fact:

"I congratulate the man who got 4,300 games, but sitting for 15 extra minutes before the game was supposed to start - that was worse. When they say 2:15 and it’s 2:25 and they’re still on the field ... I don’t want to take anything away from him. That’s a tremendous accomplishment. But tell us 2:30 instead of 2:15. That’s all."

For this Mike Mussina, you're an asshole. Oh, I could go on and rehash the whole Cito-Mussina feud also, but I think Cito put that one to bed during the season with this quote:

"Mike Mussina can kiss my ass — and you can print that"

I could also express the popular sentiment about how Mussina didn't pitch for fame or fortune, but a quick bit of research tells me that he made just under $145 million in salary during his career. Kind of takes the shine off that star, no?

So congratulations on your career, Mike. I hope you enjoy your retirement. Asshole.

Shamed by our potty mouth

Wouldn't you know that the moment that we post something that's full of expleted deleteds, we'd have Yahoo's Big League Stew, Baseball Musings and Rob Neyer link to it. Our momma's gonna let us have it, but good.

Somewhere, Buzz Bissinger just slipped that post into a brown file folder for his next TV appearances decrying the damn pamphleteers.

Of course, it's true that we've allowed ourselves to get caught up in our shameless aping of the Drunk Jays Fan to such an extent that we can't even write a post without profanity anymore, gosh darnit.

Tonight's matchup is fuc...er, delightful!
Just for the sake of perfect symmetry, tonight our hero and undisputed Cy Young front runner Jesse Litsch goes up against the last man added to the ToS Enemies List, Mike Mussina.

The Enemies List grows: Mike Mussina

Let's just get this out of the way, first and foremost. Mike Mussina sucks moose dong.

Aside from that, there are numerous reasons for us to add the Yankees has-been to our list. Most of which were more eloquently summarized by the commenters in this morning's post. But we'll summarize the summarizations.

-He showed up Cito: In the 1993 All Star Game in Camden Yards, Mussina got up in the bullpen in the late innings like a petulant teenager, trying to force Cito Gaston into playing him. This, of course, elicited wild applause from crack-smoking Bodymore, Murderland crowd. (Green House Gas is hot! Get it! Greehouse Gas!) Cito had no intention of putting him in (why would he, with Duane Ward on the mound?), but Mussina's presumptuous act resulted in years worth of hostility towards Cito from the Orioles' faithful (stupid bastards). Mussina repaid the team's loyalty by signing with the Yankees.

-He whined about the inconvenience of a ceremony honouring Tom Cheek: Sorry you got thrown off your routine, there, doucheboy. It was only a brief ceremony to honour one of the most important figures in the history of baseball in Canada, and a man who had fallen ill. So sorry that you had to soft toss for a few extra minutes in the bullpen. Your routine should really take precedence over giving a man of humble greatness the recognition he deserves.

-He's a Yankee: And all Yankees are inherently douchebags. (Yes, Derek Jeter included.) Also, we'd like to point out that the Yankees have won exactly ZERO World Series since Mussina arrived. Coincidence?

-He was in an overly precious documentary about doing crosswords: Yeah, this one. It was actually really pretty dull, and Mussina was the dullest part of the whole thing. But we're so pround of your linguistic skills, Mikey. You're super smart. We bet you could kick Johnny Damon's ass at Boggle. Smart guy.

-We hate his teeth: Nice chompers.

-He's tonight's starting pitcher: That's kind of the short view. Still, it's relevant to us.

For all of these dubious achievements and more, we welcome to the Mike Mussina to the Tao of Stieb's Enemies List. Guard your grill, jackass.

The Tao of Stieb's Enemies List

Nixon had one. P.J. O'Rourke had an ironically smug one. So why can't we? There are so many people that we have an immense dislike for that we could break this off into a whole separate blog.

Let the listing begin.

Enemy #1 - Jim Kelley of Sportsnet
Let's begin with a measured statement: Jim Kelley is the root of all evil.

Okay, maybe we've gone too far with that one. How about this: Jim Kelley is singlehandedly running the Fan 590 and Sportsnet into oblivion.

We came to this conclusion last week while in the midst of our profound malaise. We thought it had everything to do with the length of Spring Training, but as the week went on, we came to understand that it had everything to do with Kelley's co-host duties on Prime Time Sports.

PTS is an institution, and we've gladly given them more than five hours out of our busy week for years now. But after listening to the wretched depths that the show reached last week, we've made a decision to never tune in again when Jim Kelley is on. (And don't even get us started with Kelley and Mike Toth being on at the same time. Seriously, when those two guys are on at the same time, our brains start to seep out of our ears.)

Listening to five hours of Jim Kelley in the run of a week is seriously fucking depressing. Instead of being a foil to the grumpy irascible Bob McCown, he cranks up the grumpiness to 11 and spouts off endlessly and cynically about stuff that he knows nothing about. Especially nauseating are those moments when Kelley gets into a lather about the Jays, then punctuates his rant with a comment that demonstrates his complete lack of knowledge, like "You know J.P. goes out and signs, um...er...what's his name? That guy who pitches and played for the team from California. Erm. You know, the Hispanic guy who wears a cap. Well, whoever it is, why did they sign him?"

It's fascinating to see the difference in the tone and content of the show when our mancrush Stephen Brunt sits across the console from McCown. He is able to play off of McCown's angry hanging judge mentality and steer the conversation back onto the rails with, you know, logic and reason. Brunt brings out the best in McCown.

Kelley, on the other hand, is a pompous, arrogant buffoon who growls, takes cheap shots, asks stupid non-questions (that are actually cheap shots), and helps lead the show into areas of idiotic
truculence that are worthy of a small-town Red State talk radio hoedown. He brings out the worst in McCown, and together they end up sounding like a pair of petulant, cantankerous old men, bitching and moaning about how kids these days just don't get it. It's like listening to two Morton Downey Jr.'s with hemorrhoids sitting on a cold metal bench and complaining about their ass pain. Not only is it unpleasant; it's completely uninteresting.

For doing his all to ruin the second best sports talk radio show in Canada (after Jays Talk, of course), we scrawl Jim Kelley's name at the top of the Tao of Stieb's Enemies List. (You been served, sucka!)