The other night I was probably one of a handful of people not living in New York or California watching the ACLS. During the game I heard one of the announcers say something that caught my attention “A-Rod’s teammates really seem to like him this year.” They like ARod the same way we liked the fat kid in Little League. Whether you are playing for 100 million dollars or trying to bat through the line-up in one inning to earn a trip to Dairy Queen, teams are playing to win. Now that comment deserves some context before you counter me with the Chicago Cubs (not playing to win). When you are the New York Yankees and you have a payroll that could pay for universal health care and you have not won a championship since the year 2000, just going to the playoffs is not acceptable. So it would be fair to say they are trying to win. Back to the fat kid analogy, as everyone should remember, a kid like this in little league dominated that level of play. His girth was mistaken for strength and the combination of short fences and short base paths couldn’t hold him. Now we really didn’t like him because he would give all his teammates purple nurples in the hallway at school. However, he was tolerated because at 40 miles per hour, pitching did not expose the hand eye coordination he lacked. A couple years later, the pitchers’ arms got stronger, the fences got pushed back and the bases paths were extended. Now the former Little League monster couldn’t catch up with pitching, and when he did his 140 foot homers from Little League were innocuous fly balls to shallow left field. And if he ever was able to reach bases, taking an extra base on a ball that went to the backstop was adventure so you could pretty much forget about asking him to tag up, trying to bunt or having anything that ever made it past the outfielder being anything but a stand up single. Suddenly, the fat kid wasn’t needed anymore to win, but sadly this was not the death knell for purple nurples as he found them to be hilarious well into adulthood.

A-Rod’s playoff travails have been well documented. His struggles seem to be an inverse of the fat kid paradigm. A Rod came to the Yankees in 2004. He came with a quarter of billion dollar price tag. Just to put A-Rod’s playoff struggles into perspective, dating back to 2004 in ACLS he has 61 at-bats with 38 runners in scoring position. He has stranded every one of them. 38 runners in scoring position and he went 0-29. That is why Jeter, Mariano and the rest of the Yanks didn’t like A-Rod. Sure he is probably a jerk but Gandhi would have become unlikeable going 0-29 with RISP in the world’s most pressure laden city. But maybe he is being picked on as he surmised in this interview with Sports Illustrated. “When people write [bad things] about me, I don’t know if it’s [because] I’m good-looking, I’m bi-racial, I make the most money or I play on the most popular team.” No one that ever says something like that is likeable no matter what anyone says. The media has pontificated that ARod admitting steroid use was cathartic for him and has allowed him to relax. He was backed in a corner after his name got leaked and completely lied about the amount and frequency he used PED’s. So if he is overpaid, a liar and obviously self absorbed, how all of a sudden did A-Rod become likeable? Well, against the Twins had he had 2 RBI singles with 2 outs in game one. In game two he had an RBI single in the 6th and hit a game tying home run off Joe Nathan in bottom of the ninth. In game three he hit another game tying home run. He hit his third game tying home run in game two of the ACLS in the bottom of the 11th against Angel closer Brian Fuentes. He is hitting .429 in the series with three jacks and six RBI’s. Most importantly the Yankees are going to the Fall Classic. ARod’s teammates do not like him because they discovered all of a sudden he is underpaid, a nice guy and is very humble. They like him because he is going to help them win the World Series. Not unless that fat kid, Joba Chamberlin screws it up.

“Flozell Adams just pancaked DeMarcus Ware.” “Walter Jones has at least size 16 shoes.” “Javon Ringer seems to take a lot of water breaks.” Those sample tweets may or may not be fictional. Regardless of their veracity any NFL fan can follow a minute by minute breakdown of what NFL players are doing that exact moment via twitter. Now they can get first person information from the players themselves. I think everyone can rest a little easier hearing from T.O. himself that “his toe injury is no big deal.” They can also follow the tweets of beat writers and actual fans at training camp. “Steve Breaston just made a sick one handed catch.” From there, moving at the speed of light fantasy football fans can take a tweet and break it down with reckless abandon in forums filled with legions of others with jobs that lack filters to said forums. The origin of their viewpoints is not complex. If they own that player in fantasy football they respond to any criticism as if it was their first born. If they don’t, that player is open game to be raked across the coals. Sometimes it will come in the dreaded form of saying that player sucks with no further elaboration. When things get a little more heated, the caps locked key gets punched more than a visually impaired boxer. When the matter escalated to the point of no return someone will get so upset they will call the other guy out in the forum saying “they are just a dork who spends his entire day on a fantasy football message board.” That is usually followed by some rapid f5’ing to see if others have weighed in.

Now this type of interchange would play out something like this: Eagles29853 saying “Breaston is catching everything thrown at him. He is really pushing Boldin for the number two receiver spot.” CoreyDillon68123 will gently remind him “that is only preseason,” and buttress his point by inquiring, “as to how many Pro Bowls Breaston has been to?” This will not go well as Eagles29853 feels compelled to take it up a notch and say, “Boldin is injury prone and a malcontent. The organization isn’t paying him because they are saving that money for Breaston. What organization wants to break the bank on someone who screams at his coach?” CoreyDillon68123 will feel a little threatened and post Boldin’s career numbers to Breaston’s. Eagles29853 will counter by extrapolating Breaston’s 2008 numbers when Boldin was out over a 16 game season and a ten year career. “ CoreyDillon68123 will respond by saying he “wishes Eagles29853 would have the opportunity to try to tackle Boldin in the open field as he would get flattened like a pancake. But, THAT WILL NEVER HAPPENEND BECAUSE YOURE NUTHIN BUT A FAT LOSER WHO SPENDS HIS ENTIRE DAY ON A FANTASY FOOTBALL BOARD!!!!!!!!!!!”

Only the NFL can foster that type of discussion. Can you imagine fans calling laying into each other as they debate who will get the fifth spot in the Marlins’ rotation? Or exchanging barbs about who would shoot a technical for the Utah Jazz? The NFL has simply markets itself better than any other sport and it is not even close. The one day a week allows guys to minimize their obsession. “Oh, it is only Sunday.” This does not include, Saturdays to scout feature NFL players. Thursdays after Thanksgiving when the NFL Network shows games until the end of the year. Monday Night Football. And on actual Sunday there a pregame show for a couple of hours. Then games from noon to 6. Highlights from 6 to 7 with a new game starting at 7. I just glossed over the fact there is a Network completely dedicated to round the clock coverage of the NFL. The NFL’s preseason is more interesting than everyone sports’ regular season. That reminds me, I have to watch the Monday Night Football game tonight and watch Maurice Jones Drew score a couple of times so that I ask that jerk in the forum if they are really going to keep calling him to small to play in the NFL?

Brett Favre is livid. First there was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then Michael Jackson and now Sarah Palin. The poor guy cannot catch a break. Since June 12, 2009 no one has talked about gunslingin’. No one has even mentioned Wranglers. And no one cared that he went to TCBY in the Eden Prairie Mall.

First Iran. Now as a lot of you probably know Mir-Hossein Mousavi was a serious challenger to the much maligned incumbent Ahmadinejad. I know, I know, Mehdir Karroubi was also in the running; but let’s be honest he was the Ralph Nader of the contest. After “yada, yada’ing” over the boring parts we can cut to the chase that Ahmadinejad won by a margin seemingly mathematically impossible. The Ayatollah declared him the winner and the protests ofthe fraudulent election spilled into the streets of Tehran. Meanwhile in Kiln, Mississippi Brett Favre turned on his TV. Expecting to see Greta Van Susteren pontificating about what meant Brad Childress meant when he said “we are always looking at ways of improving our team.” Instead, he was aghast to find out that the live 24 hour coverage of his ranch on CNN, Fox News and even the PAX channel was no longer on. Who is this Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Isn’t he a corner back for the Oakland Raiders? One time in 2003 I threw for 399 yards and four scores on Monday Night Football against the Raiders. If Ahmadinejad has left football to be president of Iran, I could probably still do that. The world needs to know this. But unfortunately, Bus Cook’s presser was only attended by an intern at the Maple Grove Junior High morning show.

So a couple of weeks pass by and Brett bides his time. These Iranians will calm down soon enough and maybe a preordained shopping trip to the Mall of America where the media (who has already been clandestinely alerted) will capture me riding down Paul Bunyan’s log chute will help them do that. Well, that trip down the log chute where he was going to flash a number “4” with his fingers so that the camera could capture it as a still shot and then sell it to him for $24.99 never happened. Michael Jackson. The King of Pop. Thriller, the moonwalk, Beat It, Bad, Billie Jean and you can go on and on. June 25, 2009 Michael Jackson suddenly and tragically passed away in his rented Los Angeles residence. He too, was in the midst of a great comeback. If anyone knew how to make a comeback it was Michael Jackson. Brett respected Michael Jackson. The wall to wall Michael Jackson coverage overshadowed Iran. It greatly eclipsed a story of a missing governor. It would surpass even Brett Favre playing catch with John Madden. As the nation mourned Michael, another person who has been no stranger of attention from the media had an announcement. On July 3, 2009 Sarah Palin announced her resignation from the gubernatorial office of Alaska. Creating wild speculation that she was prepping for a 2012 run to the White House. Now Brett Favre respected Sarah Palin’s hustle. Here was a great American, on the eve of the most American of all American holidays announcing her retirement; only to come out of retirement and be governor of Saskatchewan just to get revenge on Alaska. I mean run for President. Don’t call it a comeback, she’s been here for years he thought to himself. Well played Palin. So he would have to wait. The media frenzy will soon calm back down. Soon people will care when he takes Katie Couric with him for a follow up appointment with Dr. James Andrews. The only question is when? When can he announce his great return? How about October 4th? The day before Green Bay comes to the Metrodome.

Allow myself to introduce myself….myself.  My name is Tall, which is obviously short for Chris “Tall.”  Right now the nexus to the plus $350 champagne is unofficial.  But as soon as they answer my calls, letters, texts, emails, and messages in a bottle — an empty Cristal bottle I found at the Target Center after a Nelly concert — I am confident something can be worked out.  However, I have worked out an elaborate deal with the Splayback Team in order to give my nebulous meanderings a home.  Since the site’s focal point is the world of sport,  I figured a good way to introduce myself is to talk about my background in athletics.

In case you missed the piece on “Beyond the Glory” about the seventh grader who dominated the Catholic school league only to enter the high school venue and find out that the competition was much stiffer.  That was my story. Like gravity and trampoline jumping, what goes up must come down.

It was not long into high school when I became cognizant of the fact that the days of playing against teams where two thirds of the players competed in glasses with ribbons in the back so that the glasses would never fall to the ground were over.  So was my athletic career.  Looking back there was no excuse for me not to consider the level of competition.  Glasses with ribbons.  Not even rec specs.  Back in those days the real athletes wore rec specs.  Chris Sabo revolutionized sports with his tight fitting, fog inducing goggles.  Any serious athlete would wear them.  Not those silly glasses where the lenses change to sun glasses when they go outside making it next to impossible to catch a fly ball on a cloudy day.  It was for the best.  I am fully convinced that if I were a professional athlete it would not have gone well.  I would drive an Escalade with rims the size flying saucers.   I would constantly question people, “Do you know who I am?” and I would have released a historically awful rap album.  I know unequivocally I would want to watch videos of myself at all times.  At my house in the home theatre.  In the VIP section of a club on my iPhone.  In the dash of my Escalade.  On the jumbotron when I was supposed to be playing.  But how great a day and age we live in where we don’t have to be  professional athletes to watch highlight clips of ourselves?  When I was growing up rec specs were ground breaking technology.  Now, through the magic of the Internet a portly guy can dance to a German song and the entire world can watch.  I know that if I had videos of myself hitting inside the park jacks (with only several errors) in the aforementioned Catholic league, I would constantly watch them on the Internet.  I would make a highlight tape and send it to scouts to show them that I am a five tool player.  Technology is a beautiful thing and I fully intend on recording my next golf round and putting it on this wonderful site for the world to enjoy.  Also, if Tiger needs a new swing coach he will know where to find me.  Cell phone videos can last upwards of four hours right?  This is a new time where if we hit a jack, do a sweet reverse lay up, score a goal, pick up a 7-10 split, or be really, really good at Ms. Pacman you can post a video on the Internet.  More specifically post a video here.  But please no adult softball videos.  Don’t be that guy.  Unless you are wearing rec specs.