An Open E-Mail to James Deacon on...Mark McGwire's abysmal on base percentage

Hello Mr. Deacon!

Just heard you on the podcast of the PTS Roundtable where you reiterate about a half dozen times that Mark McGwire had a lousy on base percentage.

As a handy reference, we thought we'd provide the names of a handful of Hall of Famers who have a worse career OBP than McGwire's .3942 (which is good enough for 77th on the all time list).

Rod Carew+* .3930
Cap Anson+ .3926
Joe Morgan+* .3921
Honus Wagner+ .3910
Alex Rodriguez (32).3891 (not and HoFer, we realize, but it makes a point, don't it?)
Frank Robinson+ .3890
Tony Gwynn+* .3882
Larry Doby+* .3859
Willie Mays+ .3839
Mike Schmidt+ .3802
Duke Snider+* .3797
Al Kaline+ .3756
Harmon Killebrew+ .3756

So, yeah, we can see how you get this idea that McGwire was a one-dimensional player. Because all he did was get on base and hit home runs and drive in the guys in front of him. But he totally SUCKED at dragging a bunt down the first base line for a single.

Until next time, keep on keepin' on,

Your pal,

The Tao of Stieb

James Deacon is a bit of a tool

Don't let the nerdy glasses throw you off. James Deacon, who scribbles inanities at AOL Canada (huh?) in between his appearances on Prime Time Sports, is indeed an idiot.

Maybe that's a bit harsh. We're sure that if you wanted someone to discuss his Argos season ticket package or his endless golf holidays, then Deacon is your guy. Sadly, that seems to be the extent of his sporting knowledge.

In his latest perfunctory posting, Deacon makes hi-freakin'-larious predictions for the coming year in sports, including a couple of ill-informed shots at the Blue Jays. To wit:

"August The greatest pitcher ever developed by the Toronto Blue Jays, Roy Halladay, wins his first start as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was traded by J.P. Ricciardi for a light-hitting shortstop, a left-handed reliever with elbow problems and a 2015 ninth-round draft pick. Halladay said he was nervous and took awhile to get control of the strike zone before settling down and throwing a complete-game, five-hit shutout. “I’m just glad to be on a contending team,” he told reporters."

This echoes an off-handed comment that made Deacon made with an incredible amount of self-assurance on PTS a few nights back. It was spoken with a tone that seemed to indicate that it was all but a done deal that the Jays would ship out Halladay as the first step in rebuilding the allegedly faltering and flailing franchise.

(And it should be noted that the Blue Jays won 86 games last season, two more than the 84 that the "contending" Dodgers needed to win the dreadful NL West.)

Setting aside the blatantly obvious fact that you can't trade draft picks in baseball (a fact that a national sports columnist should probably know if he wants to distinguish himself from ranting sports talk radio callers), the idea that the Jays would embark on such a rebuilding exercise by shipping out their most irreplaceable player defies any sort of logic. Deacon talks of this rebuilding concept as though it is somehow analogous to the way that hockey teams or basketball teams go about restocking themselves.

But shipping off your best pitcher in baseball and receiving anything approaching his value in return just doesn't happen anymore. Most teams would rather hold on to their asset and let him walk, thus assuring themselves of extra draft picks in the next year's draft rather than gambling on another team's prospects.

One need only look at the problems that the San Diego Padres have had in trying to trade Jake Peavy this offseason to see what a fool's errand it is to try to restock your system by trading your ace.

Let's hope that the wise and sage Mr. Deacon defers comment on the Blue Jays from here on out, and sticks to subjects that are closer to his heart. Like how if his beloved Argonauts are better than just two other teams next year, they can make a heroic turnaround and return to the CFL Playoffs!

Fun Facts on Fourth Place Teams!
Did you know that the Blue Jays' 86 wins were the most of any team that finished in fourth place since the introduction of the Wild Card? It's a fact!

A (somewhat fictionalized) transcript of Bob McCown's recent discussion on the Jays' president and CEO position

McCown: Grumble grumble grumble grumble Stan Kasten grumble Stan Kasten grumble grumble grumble Stan Kasten? Stan Kasten blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Stan Kasten! Grumble grumble grumble blah blah blah Stan Kasten, Stan Kasten grumble grumble grumble grumble grumble grumble blah blah blah Stan Kasten; Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten; Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten, my friend Stan Kasten.

Jim Kelley: Ahrbshholuuuutely, Bob!

McCown: Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten? Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten! Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten, flying faddoo Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten Stan Kasten.

Jim Kelley: You know in Burffalloo whhhere III aaam frrom...

McCown: STAN KASTEN!

Jim Kelley: AAArgh...I haahte paaaaying taxes in Caaanadaaa.

McCown: STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN!

Stephen Brunt: Fuck it. I'm taking the rest of the year off. If you need me, I'll be smoking fish in western Newfoundland.

McCown: STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN! STAN KASTEN!

Statler and Waldorf have got nothing on the PTS crew

Listening to Bob McCown, Jim Kelley and Bob Elliot talk about the Blue Jays is much like the Muppet Show segments with the crotchety critics, only devoid of the humour, reason and reasonable resemblance to actual human beings.

Also, the PTS baseball segments are generally stretched out over five minutes, which is a seemingly endless amount of time to allow Jim Kelley to try to make an argument about anything.

(We think Kelley's point tonight was that J.P. overspent Rogers' money on A.J. Burnett, and therefore should have overspent with the personnel that he has accumulated in order to acquire Jason Bay. Which is quite possibly the stupidest thing we've ever heard spoken on Sportsnet, the Fan 590, or on any sports talk radio program anywhere.)

Come on, guys. We fucking well get that you hate J.P., and that anything he does is wrong in your eyes, and of course you are right because the proof lies in the fact that they haven't won the World Series under his watch.

This whole act is so tiresome. We're almost rooting for J.P. to get fired at this point if only so that the thin-skinned Toronto media can get over their fucking imaginary wounds and move on.

Hopefully, Tony LaCava won't offend anyone's precious sensibilities.

The Weekend in Review: Tempests, Teapots, and Gaping Power Holes

Well that was a crappy end to a crappy homestand, now wasn't it? Accepting that the Cubs are the best team in MLB (record-wise, anyway), maybe we shouldn't be a disheartened as we are by the Jays' losing two of three.

This homestand had set itself up for the Toronto Nine to make some hay against the lower lights (Baltimore and Seattle), but instead they limp away going 3-6, dropping below .500 and falling six games back of the Wild Card. Blerg.

Let's All Read Too Much Into A.J. Burnett's Off-Handed Comment!
This one was all a bit much. The Sun-Times' Gordon Wittenmyer takes a throwaway line from A.J. Burnett about how he likes Chicago and the Cubs, and turns it into a full-blown controversy. A.J.'s comments seemed polite to us, but Wittenmyer's take ("A.J. Burnett liked the idea of a trade to the Cubs so much he might as well have said, 'Please.''') was way over the top. This resulted in a full cycle of retractions, clarifications, restatements, rebuttals, tea-leave reading and sound and fury, all of which signifies exactly nothing in the end. What fun.

Jeff Blair Is Always Right
Blair's been on a roll as of late, what with his Friday afternoon dismantling of Mike Toth on the Prime Time Sports roundtable ("I have one question: Were you smoking crack when you wrote that article?"), and his associated evisceration of gasbag Gary Carter. Blair's also hit it pretty much squarely on the head when assessing the Jays' need for a legitimate cleanup hitter.

There's no scary hitter in the team's lineup as it is currently comprised, and while we're not sure that they have enough to give in order to make a deal for an Adam Dunn, Matt Holliday or Jason Bay, the team's offensive woes are going to continue until they can find that legitimate 35 homer, 120 RsBI guy around which they can build their lineup. (And neither Vernon Wells nor Scott Rolen is that guy. Sorry.)

Mike Toth: Media Critic

Before anyone takes Mike Toth too seriously when he starts to act as a media critic, burying vastly superior broadcasters on the air, let us take a moment, and remember the time when Mr. Fun Stuff said the following on the air in the middle of a highlight package:

"Antero Nittymaki, smoking that wacky tabacky..."

Yeah, he said that. So clearly he has the moral high ground.

3-0! Undefeated in May

The powerhouse Jays are unstoppable! Sure, the Chicago Southsiders booted the ball around the park in today's 5-2 win, but at least the Jays were able to take advantage. It certainly wasn't the case last month...but April seems like so long ago, doesn't it?

More media thoughts
We're not going to beat any dead horses, but we would like to concur with the Drunk Jays Fans' Stoeten with regard to the fact that the Prime Time Sports crew should stop talking baseball. In Friday's show, the assembled crew got themselves worked into a lather about two year old minor league contract signings, and actually got simultaneously angry about the fact that J.P. Ricciardi had a "FIVE YEAR PLAN!!!", and that he had "NO PLAN"!!! Seriously guys...would you all like for J.P. to send you the Jays' player personnel strategy in a duotang so that you can review it and sign off on it?

We get that BobCat McCown hates J.P. since he refused to come on the show, but his petty vendetta against the Jays GM is tiresome.

And by the way: Is it just us, or is James Deacon getting a little dimmer with each passing year? Maybe we just gave him too much credit to begin with, since he is well-coiffed and well-dressed and wears glasses. Lately, Deacon sounds like Captain Obvious on the air, piping in with incredibly dull "insight". We get the impression that he's just hanging around the studio, agreeing with McCown, because he's got nothing better to do.

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!)