Billy Paultz Reconsidered

My favorite kind of punditry is the kind that relentlessly, mercilessly, logically dissects bull ****. Here’s a prime example, from the New Yorker’s wonderful Hendrik Hertzberg, on the ACORN crappola McCain/Palin and the Fox News simps have had such a field day with: 

During this election cycle, the Times reported today, ACORN has deployed thirteen thousand mostly paid workers, who have registered 1.3 million new voters. One or two per cent of these workers turned in sheaves of forms that they filled out themselves with fake names and bogus addresses, and, even though at least a hundred of these workers have already been fired, the forged forms have been submitted to election boards.

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that groups like ACORN are required by law to submit them, even if they’re obvious fakes. This is to prevent funny business, such as trashing forms that look like they might be Republican (or Democratic, as the case may be).

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that ACORN normally sorts through forms, flags those that look fishy, and submits the fishy ones in a separate pile for the convenience of election officials.

Sounds suspicious—until you reflect that the motivation of the misbehaving registration workers is almost always to look like they’ve been doing more work than they really have, and that the victim of the “fraud” is actually the organization they’re working for.

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that even if one of these fake forms results in a nonexistent person actually being registered, now under the Help America Vote Act of 2002, “any voter who has not previously voted in a federal election” must provide identification in order to actually cast a ballot. This will make it tough for Mickey Mouse, even if registered, to vote, no matter how big, round, or black his ears. Likewise, members of the Duck family (Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey, and Louie) who turn up at the polling place will have a hard time getting into the voting booth. (Uncle Scrooge might be able to bribe his way in, but he’s voting Republican anyway.)

Sounds suspicious—unless you know that despite all the hysteria, from 2002 to 2005, only twenty people in the entire United States of America were found guilty of voting while ineligible and only five of voting more than once. By contrast, consider the lede on this story, published a week ago today:

Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

And take it from Sarah Palin: the Times is “hardly ever wrong.”

First of all, when the weather’s like this (temps in the 70s, clear blue skies), Madison has got be one of the best places to live in America. Of course, if the weather was like this 10 months a year, 800,000 people would live here instead of 200,000 plus, and all bets would be off. Anyway, great college town.

Restaurant update, or everybody Bandung tonight: An Indonesian place called Bandung was the choice of Food Guru Bodani last night.  (If you run with FGB, you’re not going to TGI Friday’s, if you follow me….) Bandung is the only Indonesian restaurant in Wisconsin, as if that’s hard to believe. No, they didn’t have brats. Anyway, Bandung (named for Indonesia’s fourth-largest city, the capital of West Java province) was quite good and not all that exotic, similar to what Americans think of as Oriental food.

Once she found out we were “from the East,” one of the waitresses (extremely tattoo- and body-piercing-laden, but that seems to have become the rule, not the exception) wanted to know what we thought of the Midwest. We asked her what she thought of it, and she said she loved it because, and I quote, “The livin’ is easy.” So there you have it.

This might be in the notebook in tomorrow’s paper, but page A1 of Saturday’s Wisconsin State Journal, the local paper in Madison, reflected the gloomy current American realities - a story about a nearby GM plant closing, and the jarring headline, “Homeless would be warned before stuff is moved”

Wrapped around the paper, though, was a reminder of what really matters: A big Badger-red poster screaming “BEAT PENN STATE!” So much for journalistic objectivity, I guess.

Prediction: I just can’t arrive at a take on this one I’m happy with. So much depends on the Badgers’ psyche, and so much of that depends on the first few minutes. If Wisconsin hangs around early, Penn State tightens a bit, the crowd gets deeply committed, and suddenly it’s Penn State-Michigan 2005. If Penn State scores early and easily, as they’ve done a lot this year, the Badgers could go in the tank. It’s not much fun to be Badger QB Allan Everidge right now - even his own head coach doesn’t seem confident in him - and if Everidge struggles early, well….

Something to watch - A redshirt freshman, Josh Oglesby, is making his first career start for Wisconsin at the crucial left offensive tackle spot. He was the top-ranked OT prospect in the high school class of 2006 according to Rivals.com. Dude was 6-6, 300 pounds when he was in eighth grade. Anyway, his matchup with quick Penn State DEs Josh Gaines and Aaron Maybin bears watching.

Back and forth, back and forth…. Two things I keep coming back to- One, this is a matchup between a team that can score a hundred ways and a big, physical, defense-and-ground-game bunch. It’s the recent vintage Colts vs. the recent vintage Ravens, say, or the Jacksonville Jaguars. Seems to me the team that can light it up usually wins those.

Two, and I’m amazed how little this has been brought up this week, but Penn State beat these guys 38-7 last year, and is much, much better now than it was then.

Penn State 27, Wisconsin 17.

First, the restaurant, the remarkable St. Elmo’s in Indianapolis. Exactly what you’d think a big-city, downtown steakhouse would be, including hundreds of signed celeb photos on the walls, if that sort of thing appeals to you, and more importantly large slabs of perfectly prepared meat. Very, very strong stuff. Even in the current economy/culture, sometimes it’s good to be a sportswriter.

There’s a rumor, and a report on the Harrisburg Patriot-News web site, that JoePa’s leg and hip are bothering him again and he’ll thus coach from upstairs again. For what it’s worth - probably nothing - Joe brought Jay Paterno with him to the road-game, Friday night media get-together, which has never happened before.

WR Jordan Norwood, nursing a hammy (another good thing about the profession - straight-facedly using phrases like “nursing a hammy”) was considered a game-day-decision. He’s  

Oh: The game. Purdue is a favorable matchup for the Nits (bad defense, especially run defense), and the Boilermakers don’t seem especially mentalally/emotionally disposed to an upset. It’s a bit of a floundering program.

So: Penn State 45, Purdue 24.

“I have no idea who’ll win this World Series. But for once, let’s not be mealymouthed. We all know who should win it.”

That was Tom Boswell of The Washington Post, in a preview of the 1983, Phils-Orioles World Series. Boswell was right- the Os were the better team, and in that case the better team won.

The point - Here’s one of the thousands of ways baseball is utterly unique among team sports: It’s not usually hard to identify the better team before hand. It’s impossible to identify the winner.

Which brings us to the Phils and Brewers. The Phillies won more games, although only slightly. They scored 50 more runs. They have more power and speed. They get on base more. They stole more bases and got thrown out less often. Hard as you may find this to believe, they struck out far less.

Phillies pitchers allowed two more runs over 162 two games, which means adjusted for the home ballpark, the effectively allowed fewer. By most serious fielding metrics Phillies were clearly the best fielding team in the National League and the Brewers were among the worst.

The Phillies are by all objective forms of analysis better at hitting, pitching and fielding. If the series goes five games, three of them will be in their ballpark.

Even all that is not nearly enough, because winning in the postseason is often about being better right now. The Phillies went 17-7 in September, winning 13 of their last 16, including a four-game sweep of the Brewers. The Brewers went 10-15 in September. The Phils were four games behind the Brewers on Sept. 10 and finished two games ahead. From mid-Sept. to the end of the regular season the past two years, the Phillies are 26-7.

Milwaukee did win six of its last seven to, with the Mets’ help, seal the Wild Card. The first three of those were a sweep of a bad team (the Pirates) at Milwaukee, using CC Sabathia on short rest and twice winning extra-inning games by beating minor-league relievers. Then they took three of four from the Cubs, a lame-duck team that, at times, approached the games that way. Of course, the Phillies’ final-week opponents were the Braves and Nationals.

The way to beat the Phillies is with lefties, and the Brewers have a great one in Sabathia. Last year he won the Cy Young award, but allowed 15 runs in 15 post-season innings. Some suggested overwork was the problem. He throw 241 innings in ‘07. This year’s he’s thrown 253, and worked on three days’ rest in his last three starts. And in order to pitch more than once against the Phils, he’ll have to go on short rest again.

Other than Sabathia, Milwaukee has a pretty righthanded staff. Other than Sabbathia and Ben Sheets, it’s a pretty mediocre staff. And Sheets is apparently done for the season. Todd Coffey, perhaps their best reliever right now, is ineligible for the postseason.

It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to see the Brewers win this series, but what’s the argument for thinking they will? I just don’t see one. Not even a tiny one. As Keith Law of Scouts, Inc. put it: “Milwaukee has the most weaknesses and the fewest strengths of any NL playoff team.”

I have no idea who’ll win this NLDS. But for once, let’s not be mealymouthed. We all know who should win it.

Penn State’s start looks a bit different in light of Oregon State-USC, doesn’t it? The Beavers, who killed USC on the line of scrimmage for a half, did not compete for one second in Happy Valley.

Are the Nits in the national picture? We’re about to find out. I see a big night for Daryll Clark.

Penn State 38, Illinois 27.

The following post to the web site newslanc.com (Motto: “Break free from the monopoly press!”) came in reaction to my feature last week on McCaskey High School athletics…

An implication of the Sept. 21st Sunday News article “McCaskey’s Challenge” was that McCaskey High School’s teams are performing so poorly because the players are subject to all of the disadvantages and problems of inner city youths. Football coach Scott Feldman is quoted: “It’s hard to be good at [football], and we just don’t have a lot of kids right now who are willing to do it. I don’t think we’ll have football at McCaskey in another couple years if we don’t change some things.”

Long time volunteer basketball coach Steve Powell is quoted as saying “.. you’re not gonna escape it, this is a school district with basically minority young people. We have to make them understand what it’s like to be a part of something. A lot of suburban kids already have that. Most of our kids don’t. People don’t want to hear it, but it’s reality.” To test whether the problem was inner city kids, NewsLanc investigated the 2007 win / loss records of the other inner city high school football teams in our region. To wit:

Coatesville High School football 5-5 (5 wins, 5 losses)
Downingtown East football 8-3 (8 wins, 3 losses)
Downingtown West football 10-2 (10 wins, 2 losses)
Harrisburg High School football: 13-2 (13 wins, 2 losses)
Reading High School football 3-7 (3 wins, 7 losses)
York High (William Penn) 10-2 (10 wins, 2 losses)

The above results seem to be at variance to the excuses being proffered for McCaskey’s poor performance in football and possibly other sports…. 

Quite an investigation, fellas. Exhaustive.

Go ahead and take a deep breath for a moment, while I tidy up some odds and ends:

The Downingtown schools are about as inner city as Hempfield or Conestoga Valley. Their football records are every bit as relevant to this discussion as Dartmouth’s or the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy’s.

High school sports (obviously) being extremely cyclical in nature, drawing grand conclusions from one season is (obviously) beyond ridiculous.

The piece didn’t say McCaskey teams are “performing so poorly because…,” of anything. It didn’t even say McCaskey teams are performing poorly. It wasn’t about, and nothing in it is refutable by, football won-loss records.

Leaving aside all of the above….

1. Coatesville (5-5).  So you’re saying a 5-5 record is indicative of… what? Are you aware that 5-5 is not real sparkling? McCaskey won seven games and made the district playoffs way back in the dark reaches of… 2006. Never mind. McCaskey has indeed lost to Coatesville five straight times. One of those games was 34-29. Another was 36-33 and McCaskey was without its best player (injured) and several other starters. Before that, McCaskey beat Coatesville five straight times (1999-2003), including 46-6, 42-14, 28-0, and once when Coatesville was ranked fifth in the state.

2. Harrisburg (13-2). Harrisburg High School is different from McCaskey demographically in ways that tend to impact football. That’s actually an understatement. Also, it is supported financially and administratively by the city of Harrisburg, which allows it to employ a coach who has NFL and major-college experience and pay him a six-figure salary to do nothing but coach football.

3. Reading (3-7). Three and seven? This might be the place to mention that this hard-hitting expose was headlined, and I swear I’m not making this up, “Other inner city football teams kick butt.” “Other” meaning “other than McCaskey”. Which went 3-7 last year. And beat Reading. As it usually does. Hello?

4. York (10-2). York had its best football team in my memory in 2007, and I’ve been covering high school sports in this region for 26 years. During Feldman’s 11 seasons, McCaskey has played York every year and won more than it lost.

So to summarize, the only real problems with this investigation are, 1. It wasn’t an investigation; 2. It didn’t come close to revealing anything worth knowing about McCaskey sports or any other subject in the universe; and, 3. I take that back; it may have (unintentionally) revealed a few things about newslanc.com.

Seriously, guys: update your resumes. Take a drive, just to feel the wind in your hair. Reacquaint yourself with friends and family. Do a puzzle. (Sudokus are fun.) Take some time for Y-O-U. Lord knows you’ve earned it.

The Owls probably have the best defense the Lions have faced so far (although, like so many statements that apply to this season, that’s not saying much has to be appended).

Penn State has been clinical so far, laughing off the off-field issues and maybe even using them. There’s an “us-against-the-world,” feel to this. Doubt the Lions will score as easily as they have so far, but, yeah, you guessed it…

…that’s not saying much.

Penn State 38, Temple 3.

I somehow missed this, which happened late Friday, until today (Monday). “David Foster Wallace, writer of dark, manic irony, has committed suicide…” Reading that made air rush from my gut. It was as if I’d lost someone from my own family, which sounds ridiculous and celebrity-obsessed, like those simps who make a annual vacation of going to Graceland to weep over Elvis.

Except that I knew this guy, at least his mind and inner world, better than even my own family’s. He was just 46, and he was a genius, and his work somehow made me feel good about the fact that he was better than I’ll ever be.

I spent the next half-hour watching him on The Charlie Rose Show. He looks ridiculous, with what appears to be a small pillowcase on his head and ending answers with a weird, teeth-bearing grimace that seems like a manic tic. Still, with all that, equal parts brilliant and likable.

The “writer of dark, manic irony,” description bugs me.  Sounds like the simplistic take on, for example, Kurt Cobain, i.e. the weirdo artist too messed up and tortured for the world, but it’s more than that. DFW may be the least ironic great mind I’ve encountered. The various obits and remembrances in the media have predictably but wrongly labeled him postmodern, if you define postmodern as he did, loosely, as self-conscious and routinely cynical and irreverent and self-conscious.

Except for the self-conscious part, that’s almost the opposite of what he was. Consider the famous essay on John McCain, perhaps the least partisan, least cynical and most honestly hopeful piece of political journalism in memory. Consider that essay, grimly, in light of what McCain has clearly become. You don’t think?….

Nah.

Consider the essay on 9/11 in which he notes that all his neighbors are displaying American flags on their property, and touchingly admits to a panic episode when he’s unable to buy a flag of his own anywhere in town. That piece later implies that he’s a regular church-goer who might, amazingly, be conventionally Christian.

For what it’s worth (probably nothing) he hanged himself on 9/12.

Anyway. This was a great, great writer and thinker, and we can’t afford to lose any of those. I can’t believe he killed himself, can’t believe he’s deprived us of whatever would have come next. It sucks that he’s dead.

Can you love a man you didn’t know? I think you can. RIP.

We are live from the fabulous Doubletree Hotel in Syracuse, where the Nittany Lions are ready to turn the Orange into juice.

It’s my first time in the Cuse, which seems like a decent mid-sized city. Hard to get a good taste of it last night, since the downtown area was largely blocked off for the premiere of the Ernie Davis movie “The Express.” Bob Costas, Jim Brown and many of the movie’s stars are in town, although the only actor’s name I recognize is Dennis Quaid, who plays Davis’ coach at Syracuse, Ben Schwartzwalder.

Thanks to Penn State beat food guru Frank Bodani, we did find an excellent restaurant near downtown last night, a place called the Mission. It’s in a church that was once a main stop on the Underground Railroad. There’s a dug out cavelike area under the church where slaves lived for, in some cases, months at a time. Before the Civil War, escaped slaves were treated as stolen property, and people who harbored slaves thus criminals. At that point, the Mason-Dixon Line meant nothing. The Underground Railroad’s true destination then was Canada. Upstate New York was a mecca for slaves on the lam, and Harriet Tubman lived in a house the next town over from here. It’s now a museum.

All this according to our waiter, who was very much like a tour guide despite the three metal studs he had pierced into the back of his neck.

After dinner we hit the customary night-before-road-game media get-together for beers and the very entertaining South Florida-Kansas game. JoePa showed up, but only stayed about 15 minutes and was fairly subdued. Joe always looks worn out 7-8 weeks into the season. This year it appears to be happening early. Of course, he’s 81 years old.

Oh yeah, the football. Syracuse’s program is by all appearances - reported administrative indifference, little community support, no stability in the coaching staff, declining facilities - a mess. Coach Greg Robinson, now 7-30 in his fourth season, has been making noises lately like if he’d known how bad it was, he would never have taken the job. Even heard a rumor last night that if his team gets blown out, Robinson will be fired today.

This is a giant mismatch, but I have a feeling with everything going on, the Cuse will make a little bit of a stand. I said a little bit.

Penn State 33, Syracuse 10.

Completely forgot to do this yesterday, so we’re live from Happy Valley. Although rain is expected later, the weather’s pretty nice right now, just cloudy, hardly any rain up here all day. That means OSU should be able to throw the ball, and pass defense is likely a vulnerable area for Penn State. On the other hand, Penn State should be able to run the ball against what is likely a bad OSU run defense (the Beavers were no. 1 against the run in the country last year, but the entire front seven graduated).

The more I think about this, the more I like Oregon State, but I’m just guessing experience is the tiny difference.

Penn State 30, Oregon State 27.