Billy Paultz Reconsidered

Remember when the ACC added  Virginia Tech, Boston College and Miami and was supposed to become a Super League?

The Super League went 7-4 on week one, and exactly one of the wins was against a BCS foe, and that was Baylor. The rest came against  Jacksonville State, Charleston Southern, Delaware (barely, by Maryland), James Madison, Kent State and McNeese State (barely, by North Carolina).

The losses includes Virginia Tech to East Carolina and Clemson, considered a national title contender, 34-10 at home to Alabama, maybe the 5th best club in the SEC. Clemson coach Tommy Bowden admitted Bama just played harder than his troops did.

The real No. 1 in the country, by the way, is USC, which killed Virginia 52-7 five days after QB Mark Sanchez was cleared to fully practice after recovering from a knee injury. Rushing yards in that one: 218-32. And it was at Virginia.

Compared to that mess, the Big Ten did OK in week one, 7-3 with two of the losses (Cal-Michigan State and MIzzouri-Illinois) close ones on the road against quality opposition. The other loss, of course, was by Michigan at home to Utah. The Utes are probably pretty good, but Michigan, at least for now, is a mess.

Casual perusal of the chat rooms reveals surprising patience and reason among Michigan hardcores. Nothing like this sugar-coat from Big Ten’s web site:

The Wolverines gave one of the nation’s better non-BCS conference teams a run for their money in a game that had all the makings of one that could have turned out a lot worse.

In addition to being deliberately untethered to reality, that’s got to be one of the ugliest sentences in public-relations history.

Two of my favorite journalists are Michael Kinsley and Christopher Hitchens, Kinsley because of his calm, relentlessly logical parsing of bullcrap, and Hitchens because he’s almost always either brilliant or hilariously insane or both.

Anyway, each of them has a fine dissection of campaign nonsense currently on Slate. Kinsley on John McCain making lack of experience a cornerstone of his case against Obama and then picking as a running mate the least experienced person imaginable, and Hitchens on the Democrats accusing McCain of having the gall to be wealthy.

By the way, here’s a little taste of Hitchens at his appalling/hilarious best/worst. 

Too obvious to be interesting, so let’s talk about this.

I just don’t understand the argument for Devlin. He’s from Downingtown, which is sort of the Philly area and thus presumably explains the above link, but still.

Nobody knows how good either Clark or Devlin will be, since neither has played much. But Clark is obviously more experienced, and is a better fit for anything resembling a spread offense. What’s the argument for Devlin? Maybe he’s Tom Brady, but based on what would you predict that at this point?

Anyway, you know what tomorrow’s gonna be like… say 54-10.

I seem to remember, as a child, being sort of fascinated by the political conventions.

Now I find them sad and embarrassing. Part of that is the proliferation of media removing the novelty from all things. Part of it is your correspondent getting old. But the most important part is the endlessly depressing fact that politics is one percent about governing and 99 percent about winning the race.

A while back someone asked Barack Obama what he’d do his first day in office, and his answer was a great one: Sit down with his White House counsel and undo everything George Bush did to eviscerate the Constitution. More than a one-day project of course, but exactly the right idea.

Except that the Constitution, what it means and why it matters, is too abstract and “intellectual” for people. Ideas don’t play in Peoria, or whatever. Americans don’t do nuance, as somebody said. Meaning: Americans are simps.

So along came the ridiculous FISA bill, which in its final, voted-upon form actually went further in dumping on the Constitution than the Bushies hoped. And Obama had a choice between protecting the document or appearing “tough on terror,” or some such nonsense and he chose, not surprisingly but sadly, some such nonsense. Obama and his people just had the national stage to themselves for a week and the only person to bring the subject up was… John Kerry? Nice to see him seem pissed but, you know, maybe a bit late.

Obama did make a nice speech Thursday, and not a rah-rah one. He is a charismatic, sharp, gifted guy. But, again, those gifts have been developed into skills in order to persuade people, not actually address problems.

I’ll probably vote for him, since the other guy increasingly seems nuts and/or a fraud. But other than Dubya mercifully riding into the sunset, I see nothing to be excited about.

Hi. My name is Mike. I’m a sportswriter. Remember me?

I’ve been deep undercover the last couple weeks doing preseason football stuff (Penn State holding its media day the same day as Lancaster-Lebanon League media day for the first time ever really screwed me, man). But the school year begins tomorrow, and soon, praise the Lord, there’ll be a semblance of weekly routine around here, and yeah, that routine will include BPR.

I wanted to say a few things about changes at LNP. I’ll be covering Penn State football for all three papers, probably including a story in the Intell Mondays after games, Wednesdays after JoePa’s weekly teleconference, and Fridays previewing the next day’s game. The game coverage in the Sunday News will be essentially the same, a game story with a column and grades.

This probably means I won’t do much with Joe’s teleconference on the blog, just a mention if news breaks or Joe says something amazing/funny/stupid. Maybe I’ll be doing more than I think.

Just as important is LNP’s new, amped-up Internet presence, which I mentioned in the paper today. From what I’ve seen, this has the potential to be far beyond what anyone else around here is doing. Once they start playing high school football this week, you’ll be able to, for each Lancaster-Lebanon league school, access the schedule, a game story and box score for each game, photos and videos for most of them, and a clickable roster that will provide stats and even biographical information on the players, plus columns, blogs, etc.

The address is lancsports.com (although the public can’t access it until Friday, when high school football starts). It’s a brave new world.

Wanted to say a few long-overdue things about Jimmy Rollins’ comments on the Philly fans.

Rollins wants the fans to show up and be supportive no matter what. Fantasyland.

The fans want to the team to win but, failing that, they want to entjoy themselves by indulging their resentment of pro athletes’ fame and riches. Dumb and unhealthy, but whatever.

I want fans, when the product is substandard, to just stay home. “Frontrunner,” to me, is another word for “intelligent consumer.” If there were more frontrunners, big-time sports would be smaller, cheaper and better.

When a player fails to hustle or otherwise behaves in a clearly unprofessional way, it is not only fans’ right but arguably their obligation to express disaproval. But that’s not what most booing is. Eighty percent of booing is not constructive. If you really, truly want a player to succeed but boo him when he simply fails you’re not helping, so don’t tell me you want to win more than the players do.

On “Baseball Tonight,” tonight, Steve Phillips did a little feature, with examples from today’s games, on how important “the little things,” are.

Of course that set off my radar, and of course Phillips didn’t disappoint. From Cardinals-Braves today: 2nd inning, Braves up 2-1. Yadier Molina leads off the Cards’ half with a single. Aaron Miles singles. Pitcher Braden Looper bunts Molina to third and Miles to second. Brian Barton doubles, two runs scoring. Cesar Izturis makes the second out with a ground ball to the right side, and Joe Mather lines out to left to end the inning.

Phillips’ point is that Looper’s bunt was the key, or a key, to the whole thing. OK, but think about it - Reconstruct the inning with Looper utterly failing to do the Little Thing and striking out instead of bunting…. Molina and Miles probably score from 1st and 2nd on Barton’s double and even if Miles doesn’t, he scores from third on Izturis’ grounder to the right side (it’s the second inning, so there’s no way the infield’s in). With the bunt, the Cardinals score two runs. Without it….. they score two runs.

Ye Gods.

August…. the storylines of the baseball season are already old enough to be tiresome, but we’re still a ways from anything decisive. There’s so much failure in baseball that when it isn’t quite leading to anything, it’s tough to take. And everybody knows football is coming. This is a tough time of year to follow baseball even if your favorite team is watchable.

Of course, it’s worse if your team isn’t watchable. Which brings us to the Phillies. Who among their position players is having a good year, in light of their track record and a reasonable expectation given what they’re clearly capable of? Howard? No. Utley? No. Rollins? Please. Feliz, Ruiz, Jenkins, Werth? No, no, no, no. Of their 13 position players, only Burrell gets a clear yes. Victorino and Dobbs (in a very limited role) get qualified yesses. That’s it.

The reality is the way the Phils have pitched, the division race ought to be just about over. It’s ridiculous that they’re not on a 95-100-win pace, and that might be conservative. Adjusted for the home ballpark, they’ve probably only been the fifth- or sixth-best offense in the league, and it has nothing to do with “clutch,” or “situational” hitting. Consider some of these on-base percentages- Utley .367 (ought to be at minimum 30 points higher), Rollins .333, Howard an abysmal .321, Felix .304, and Jenkins .300 (lower than Adam Eaton).

Ugh.

Here’s the latest edition, taped Tuesday:

I’m at the Barnstormers’ game, and there’s a local physician’s group that threw out ceremonial first pitches (yes, plural) and was also allowed to take a hand mike and, over the stadium PA, essentially do an advertisement for their practice that lasted like 3-4 minutes. What the… People are actually applauding at all the appropriate moments and more than just politely. Not a bad thing, I guess, unless it starts happening every night with like appliance salesmen, but am I the only one who finds this strange?….

More fun stuff at the ballyard…. York has Shea Hillenbrand, a two-time major league all-star who had 267 ABs in the bigs a year ago. He’s hitting .340, but with exactly one home run and eight errors (even though he DHs at times, including tonight) in 24 games….

York also has Jose Cruz, son of the longtime major-leaguer, Jose Cruz, and brother of another big-leaguer, Jose Cruz, Jr. That’s correct: all three of them are named Jose. I understand Dad is now test-marketing an indoor grill…

One of the doctors who threw out a first pitch is now doing color commentary on the radio. I’m fully expecting him to pinch-hit later, and Boots Day to assist on some surgery next week….

Just had an informal chat with Jon Danos, president of Keystone Baseball, which owns both these teams. He acknowledged that he’s talked with Marc Schoenfelt, who’s opening a state-of-the-art indoor baseball facility in Manheim, about basing Atlantic League spring training at the facility. They’re just talking, nothing close to finalized. Local outdoor fields, certainly including the Clip Joint, would also have to be utilized. Might be much cheaper than going to Florida for a week. Danos said he’s informally polled the players and was surprised to find they seem to like the idea…

Danos said he’s also talked to officials at F&M about using the school’s dormitories to house Barnstormers during the season. This would be in addition to, not in place of, placing players with local families. F&M seemed amenable, Danos said, but, again, nothing’s close to finalized… 

More from the It’s-A-Small-World Dept.: Tim Foli’s son Dave, a pitcher, just came on in relief for York…

is a wonderful thing, one of those Internet creations no one could have forseen and it’s now hard to imagine being without. But its bios of athletes often include some subtle weirdness.

Dan Kreider’s is only eight sentences long, but one of those is: “Kreider attended the University of New Hampshire and was an A student and letterman in football.”

You’d think it would go without saying that an NFL player lettered in college, but, hey, congrats, Dan.

Here’s another one: “[Billy] Paultz played organized basketball at River Dell Regional High School in Bergen County, New Jersey.”

The lack of detail on Billy’s teenage pickup games is really glaring here.

Here’s the line that may become this blog’s credo: “Although Paultz moved with a bulky stiffness, he was a very heady player.”

That’s what she said.

Don’t expect to see much about fantasy sports on this blog, but Sports Illustrated’s NFL fantasy preview last week caught my attention.

The most valuable position in real football is of course, QB, but in fantasy it’s running back. SI has Brian Westbrook ranked fourth at RB behind LaDanian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson and Joseph Addai.

Of that group - and the RBs ranked below it, for that matter - Westbrook is right there with everybody in rushing yards last year, and has by far the most total yards per game, receptions and receiving yards. (The only exception is the Dolphins’ Ronnie Brown in total YPG, but he wasn’t a full time player). And if they allowed Westbrook to do it, he’s surely be one of the best punt/kick returners in the sport.

This might be a reach, but an argument could be made that the former DeMatha High point guard is the best player in the NFL. Not most valuable, but best. And for the most part he doesn’t even practice.